Although the Han River waterfront represents the geographical heart of Seoul and a historically significant public space, it remains physically severed from the urban core by the Gangbyeon Expressway and Olympic Expressway. Han River Covered Parks hav...
Although the Han River waterfront represents the geographical heart of Seoul and a historically significant public space, it remains physically severed from the urban core by the Gangbyeon Expressway and Olympic Expressway. Han River Covered Parks have emerged as a promising solution to overcome this structural disconnection; however, the rejection of the river occupancy permit for the Banpo Jugong Complex 1 Redevelopment Project in 2024 revealed that the current institutional framework is ill-equipped to accommodate the demands of complex waterfront regeneration initiatives. This study designates the aforementioned project as its primary case, with the dual aim of identifying the structural causes of the institutional constraints facing Han River Covered Parks and proposing actionable policy directions through comparative analysis with leading international precedents.
The theoretical framework is organized around three axes. First, through Effective Publicness—an integrated concept drawing on Habermas's theory of the public sphere and Madanipour's behavioral conception of publicness—this study empirically demonstrates that the current funding-source-centered approach to publicness assessment is fundamentally at odds with theoretically grounded criteria encompassing physical accessibility, visual openness, social inclusivity, and programmatic diversity. Second, by extending Allen and Corner's concept of Infratecture from the design domain into the institutional realm, the study argues that the realization of covered parks presupposes not merely creative design solutions but the establishment of an enabling institutional framework. Third, drawing on Van Eyck's In-Between theory, covered parks are conceptualized as vertical transitional layers connecting ground and water levels, as well as horizontal suturing surfaces mediating between road infrastructure and residential fabric—demonstrating that this design-mediation capacity serves as a critical mechanism for restoring fragmented urban tissue. The comparative international analysis examines six cases—Shanghai West Bund Cultural Corridor, Shanghai Yangpu Waterfront, Tokyo Sumida River, Paris Coulée Verte, New York Hudson River Park, and Chicago Millennium Park—across six analytical dimensions: governance structure, publicness implementation, financing mechanisms, waterfront-urban connectivity, and implications for Korean application.
The analysis reveals that institutional constraints are structured across three layers: ① ambiguity in publicness assessment criteria, ② structural limitations of the public contribution (Gibu-chaenap) model and jurisdictional gaps in post-completion management, and ③ the failure to achieve spatial continuity in vertical and horizontal transitional spaces and programmatic overlap. The 2024 rejection and the conditional approval granted in December 2025 confirm that these structural contradictions cannot be fundamentally resolved through the imposition of individual permit conditions alone.
On this basis, the study advances three core policy recommendations: ① establishment of an integrated governance body, ② redefinition of publicness standards and introduction of a composite financing model, and ③ standardization of a maintenance Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). These recommendations are organized into a three-phase policy roadmap spanning short-term (2026–2027), mid-term (2027–2029), and long-term (2029–) horizons. The study's contributions operate across three dimensions. Theoretically, it represents the first application of an integrated analytical framework combining the three theoretical lenses to the Korean river occupancy regulatory system. Practically, it provides actionable standards applicable to subsequent projects in Apgujeong, Seongsu, and Yongsan. In terms of policy, it systematically constructs the legislative rationale for enacting a Special Act on Han River Waterfront Regeneration.