Paju Farm City

South Korea

Back to Work

A hybrid city preserving farmland and combining creative industry, agriculture, and raw nature in a new urban living paradigm.

Client

Cooperative of Paju Book City

Programme

Urban Design

Project Lead

Michal Wojtiewicz

Year

2020

Introduction

The founder of Paju Book City had a visionary approach to creating this third phase of the city development. Would it be possible to preserve much of the farmland that exists on the site and create a hybrid city that combines creative industry, agriculture, and raw nature in a new paradigm for urban living?

The design challenge

How to create a regenerative city that takes us away from the disposable culture of extraction and consumption and moves us towards a healthier, more sustainable approach to life and environment?

The design solution

With the miracle of the 20th century behind us, Korea faces great 21st century challenges. The country is beset by problems of air pollution, high suicide rates, low birth rates, and elderly poverty in one of the most rapidly aging societies in the world. While the problems are many, the basic reason is one. To achieve Korea’s extreme success, Koreans made an extreme society. Leaving behind the rhythms of nature, Koreans are living unbalanced lives. We cannot continue to move forward in this way, and Paju Farm City proposes a new, healthy start.

This project brings agriculture, raw nature, energy, and waste systems all into the city. When all of these elements are directly within everyone’s sight, we all become more conscious of the impacts of our daily decisions on our lives and our environment.

Farm City combines agriculture, waste to power generation, and renewable energy generation to move towards a closed loop of food and energy. The natural landscape of the bordering mountain is extended and brought into the city as well, and reed beds create natural filtration systems to transform agricultural wastewater into clean water for city use. Meanwhile, water is also collected on rooftops, with the goal of creating a closed water cycle.

Along the radial waterways, agricultural land and nature park thread through the urban fabric, creating space-efficient linear parks and productive landscapes. These terminate in small wellness gardens and community farms that anchor the community.

These designs point us toward an ideal of self-sufficient cities, producing their own food and clean energy. We imagine a deep integration between nature, agriculture, and city.