Special Districts in Seoul have been carrying out since 1980's, introduced by Jamsil Urban Design Guidelines, and was established in July, 2000 as a ‘Special Plan District' in District Unit Planning.
Looking into the Purpose of Special Districts sin...
Special Districts in Seoul have been carrying out since 1980's, introduced by Jamsil Urban Design Guidelines, and was established in July, 2000 as a ‘Special Plan District' in District Unit Planning.
Looking into the Purpose of Special Districts since ‘Special Districts' in Jamsil Urban Design Guidelines to ‘Special Plan District' in District Unit Planning, which have been enforced in Seoul. Every Special Districts have the same purpose, attainment the ‘public good' using the Special guideline management. Special District is an urban design tool for managing important sites within urban design district for future development in which private development is controlled and necessary public space is provided.
Seoul has a good Special districts development examples such as ‘Korea World Trade Center’, Posco Building’ before, but according to the survey of building uses in ‘Special Plan Districts', which have developed since 2000, 65 percents of buildings are being planned(a few cases the construction is already underway) or built as a Super-tall Mixed-use Residential Building.
Nowadays Mixed-use Residential Buildings in Seoul tend to be extremely tall and form housing like super block apartments. These Mixed-use Residential Buildings have cause many problems such as incongruity in landscape, disturbance of light or view, and privatization of outdoor spaces. However, these super-tall Mixed-use Residential Buildings in Special Districts are planned without a consideration of an urban situation, even so most Special Districts are located in a very important district in Seoul.
In order to control these problem Special Districts have to be controled by a improved direction.
Nevertheless, in many cases special districts were designed without any specific design guidelines. And even it has a improved system that making Special Districts guidelines twice. In terms of implementation, the reasons why special districts promoted development of High-rise Mixed-use Residental Buildings were using the guidelines with loose control over the use of buildings and applying the highest hight permitted by law. As a result of the study on these groups who take participate in making special districts guidelines, District Unit Planning, Special Districts guidelines, and building design were made by only several engineering companies.
Furthermore, in many cases Special District development got a lot of incentive in compensation for the public spaces provided by special district but in few cases, the public spaces are provided at an suitable place. So it needs an improved incentive system that could induce various public purposes.
Finally, in Seoul every Special Districts development plans have to go through design committee to obtain building approval. However, in many cases that need to make a revision specially building use or FAR, the design plans go without any modification.
Therefor, Special Districts have to be controled by a improved direction and for that there are further studies on special districts.