A conceptual proposal to transform the site of a 1960’s era, underground military bunker in Busan, South Korea into a wellness preserve that aims to connect local residents and international visitors to Korean culture, to nature and to each other.
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We have rapidly adapted to the overwhelming built and digital environments within cities, not necessarily leaving room to detach from them. This wellness preserve allows you to find your own pace, disconnecting from the busy lives and static structures we’ve become so accustomed to and reconnecting with yourself, your culture, community, and to nature.
The architecture—spaces strategically carved from the landscape—serves not as a formal object, but as a sensorial and cultural experience. The journey of disconnecting and reconnecting happens on three strata—underground, on ground, and above ground. Programs stretched across the different levels create varying perspectives as you disconnect from the bustling city, and begin to wander, indulge, and reconnect to nature.
By excavating earth above a portion of the bunkers, dark and abandoned spaces have been opened up and integrated into the natural environment as a serene bath. Organic and prescribed paths intertwine through stages for Korean culture and the arts. These stages live in the form of exhibition spaces throughout— as treehouses that emerge from the dense canopies and an intimate exterior performance venue nestled in the rear of the site.
With embedded moments of water, the design takes on the meaning of Mulmangol, “plenty of water,” as well as the symbolic connotations of water—a source of life, healing, cleansing for both the mind and the body. The Mulmangol Wellness Preserve invites visitors (locals and tourists) to talk to the person next to them, to sit down and look up at the sky and form ideas among trees rather than among skyscrapers.
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