Project Name: Uni Center

Location: Seongdong-gu, Seoul, South Korea

Design Team: G/O Architecture

Total Floor Area: 690 m²

Completion: 2024

Photography: tqtq studio

Design Features:

Project Uni Center, designed by G/O Architecture, is a comprehensive renovation of Hanyang University's existing Student Union into a welfare-centred, multi-functional community hub for students. Positioned along the main pedestrian axis connecting the subway station, the main building, and the welfare campus facilities, this 690-square-metre intervention redefines the spatial possibilities of campus infrastructure through openness, interaction, and belonging.

The project's most compelling achievement lies in the systematic dissolution of boundaries — between interior and exterior, between corridor and gathering space, between institutional function and individual experience. Where the former building was isolated, introverted, and segmented, the renovation opens the structure visually and physically toward the outdoor plaza. Spatial devices are inserted to encourage dwelling and interaction: corridors are transformed into social spaces, walls are removed to create an open layout connecting programmes organically.

The renewed facade is articulated by a rhythmic series of L-shaped framing elements wrapping around the windows, lending the elevation visual depth and continuity. A sinuous curved surface flows uninterrupted from ceiling to wall to floor, softening what was once a rigid vertical presence into a fluid, welcoming form that naturally guides movement between outdoor and indoor spaces while offering areas for rest. The previously dark terrace has been activated through metal louvers, linear lighting, and green-toned outdoor furniture, transforming it into a vivid interface between the building and the campus plaza.

Inside, the ground floor has been liberated into a single generous volume functioning as a tripartite community lounge: the Table Lounge accommodates collaborative group work, the Stair Lounge provides informal tiered seating for spontaneous encounter, and the Bar Lounge offers a quieter retreat for individual study. At the lounge's end, a semi-transparent counselling booth achieves a precise balance between visual accessibility and acoustic discretion — a considered gesture that speaks directly to the project's broader commitment to student wellbeing.

The Student Affairs Office features a sculpted birch and steel counter that functions simultaneously as architecture and furniture, its organic form echoing the building's overarching commitment to softness over rigidity. Bright tones and U-glass panels create a clear and welcoming environment throughout the administrative zone. Across all spaces, pale timber, U-glass, metal louvers, and carefully resolved lighting work in concert to produce an atmosphere that is both purposeful and genuinely restorative. Uni Center presents a persuasive model for campus architecture where transformative potential, spatial quality, and human belonging are treated as inseparable design imperatives.

Design Team G/O Architecture, formally known as Great Ordinariness Architecture, is a Seoul-based multidisciplinary design practice operating across architecture, interior design, graphic design, and urban design. The studio maintains its principal office at 2F, 45, Segeomjeong-ro, 9-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul, Korea 03014, delivering a full range of architectural and consultancy services to local and international clients.

Led by Principal Architect Lee Juyoung, a registered architect in the Netherlands and appointed Seoul Public Architect, the studio advances a rigorous design philosophy grounded in the concept of "Great Ordinariness" — engaging the built environment through the lens of everyday human experience rather than speculative theory. Lee Juyoung holds a Master of Arts in Housing and Urbanism from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, and her professional formation spans internationally renowned institutions including Ove Arup (London), Parritt Leng Architects (London), Space Group Seoul, and Samsung C&T (Seoul). She currently serves as an adjunct professor of architectural design at Hanyang University ERICA Campus, actively bridging academic inquiry and built practice. She has also served as an architectural committee member for Anyang City and as a public urban architect for Suwon City.

The studio's design methodology is anchored in contextual research spanning everyday life, constantly searching to advance the ways by which it recognises, interprets, and redefines the quality of built environments. G/O Architecture rejects unfeasible concepts and theoretical excess, instead practising what it calls "great ordinariness" — finding spatial significance in the unremarkable details of daily life, from the stories of small plants on a street corner to the rhythms of a busy morning commute. This approach produces architecture that is simultaneously intellectually considered and practically realised, rooted in genuine communication with people and places. The practice consistently delivers projects that balance innovation with pragmatism, spatial quality with user comfort, and institutional purpose with human warmth.