Jeollanam-do, South Korea

Located in a city shaped by large-scale steel production, Park1538 reimagines industrial identity as a source of cultural value.

Rather than serving solely as a corporate facility, it opens itself as a public platform where citizens can engage directly with the material, technology, and history of steelmaking.

Park1538 Gwangyang by UNSANGDONG Architects, won an 2026 International Architecture Award from The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design.

Steel is often associated with rigidity and weight, but the design explores a different side of this familiar material, its latent flexibility. By uncovering and celebrating this quality, the project treats steel not just as a structural element but as a guiding principle shaping form, surface, and space.

This approach extends from the building’s exterior into the interior, where steel becomes the basis for defining volumes, organizing circulation, and shaping the visitor experience.

The design draws inspiration from the city’s name, Gwangyang, which means “sunlight.” Sweeping, curved surfaces reflect and refract light throughout the day, making the building a dynamic presence.

The fluid geometry of the steel expresses both its weight and surprising adaptability, turning strength and flexibility into sculptural yet purposeful architecture.

The exhibition hall is a dramatic cantilevered volume lifted above the ground, creating an open plaza that extends the city’s public realm into the site.

Inside, the open floor allows for flexible exhibition arrangements, while ramps and stairs guide visitors through a three-dimensional path that gradually reveals views of the city and the building itself. 

Here, steel continues to play a central role. Curved ribs and structural lines support the long spans and define spatial thresholds, subtly directing movement and framing experiences.

The path reaches the rooftop, where the surrounding industrial landscape becomes part of the exhibition.

The structure relies on vertical steel ribs of varying curvature and inclination. They act as frames, façade elements, and spatial guides simultaneously.

Their precise arrangement allows complex geometries and long spans, showing how steel’s adaptability can shape both form and function.

Next to the exhibition hall, the education center houses classrooms, studios, lecture rooms, and communal spaces. A central atrium encourages visual and spatial connections, creating a lively environment for interaction.

A grand stair serves as both circulation and gathering space, linking diverse programs into an open and collaborative learning environment. The spatial clarity and openness here reflect the logic of steel, whose strength allows generous spans and flexible layouts.

Landscape design plays a key role in shaping the site experience. The once flat industrial terrain is transformed into mounds, planted slopes, and pathways. These forms echo the building’s fluid lines while softening the industrial context with greenery.

Remnants of steelmaking, such as machinery, are integrated into the landscape as sculptural elements, preserving the site’s memory while transforming it into a contemporary cultural resource.

Park1538 stands as a civic gesture linking industry, culture, and environment.

 Its expressive steel forms and reimagined landscape turn an industrial site into a vibrant public destination, celebrating innovation, community, and architecture’s transformative potential.

By revealing steel’s subtle flexibility, the project shows how a material often seen as rigid can guide structural invention and spatial imagination.

Project: Park1538 Gwangyang
Architects: UNSANGDONG Architects
Lead Architects: Yoongyoo Jang, Changhoon Shin, Mijung Kim, and Dongkeun Kim
Design Team: Minkyun Kim, Eunsol Ko, Siyoung Lee, Nahee Kwon, Moonhwan Kim, Hee Cho, Seongmook Lim, Seho Ahn, Kyungmo Kim, and Bosung Park
Associate Architects: POSCO A&C
Landscape Architects: Aliveus architecture and landscape architecture
General Contractor: POSCO E&C
Client: POSCO (Pohang Iron and Steel Company)
Photographers: Sergio Pirrone