West 8 was handed the first prize award for Yongsan National Park Compettion

Today, the 25th of May, the Minister for Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs has awarded the team of West 8 as winner of the “Yongsan National Park Competition” during an official ceremony.

West 8 has won the first prize in a competition among eight international design offices for the realization of the 243 hectare large Central Park in Seoul. The location in the city centre was a walled military base first occupied by the Japanese and later by the American army. The base will be moved and Yongsan will be designed as a large urban park, comparable in size to the New York Central Park, which will contain the National Korean Museum and a series of diverse landscape. A budget of $1.2 billion has been reserved for the redevelopment of the park.

It is a highly prestigious project and falls under the responsibility of the federal government.

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West 8 is an award-winning international office for urban design and landscape architecture founded in 1987. Over the last 20 years West 8 has established itself as a leading practice with an international team of 70 architects, urban designers, landscape architects and industrial engineers. West 8 developed projects all over the world in places such as Copenhagen, London, Moscow, New York, Madrid, Toronto and Amsterdam. The office gained international recognition with projects such as Schouwburgplein in Rotterdam (NL), Borneo-Sporenburg in Amsterdam (NL), Chiswick Park in London (UK) and Expo ’02 in Yverdon-les-Bains (CH). Many of the projects are the result of groundbreaking entries in important international competitions. Recently won competitions include Toronto Waterfront in Toronto (CA), Governors Island in New York (USA) and Playa de Palma in Mallorca (ES).

Amongst the numerous awards received by West 8 are the Honor Award of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), Lifetime Achievement Award for Architecture 2011, Mondriaan Fund (formerly BKVB),  the International Urban Landscape Gold Award (IULA), the Prix de Rome, the Dutch Maaskant Award, the Bijhouwer Award, the Rosa Barba First European Landscape Prize, the Green Pin and the Veronica Rudge Green Prize for Urban Design.

For more information: Public Relations, Winnie Poon and Tamara Kool, +31 (0)10 – 485 58 01, pr@west8.com, www.west8.com