Green roof tops Daum Communications / Ilshin Building, Seoul, Korea Seoul is not known for it eco-friendly building designs, but a couple of buildings I encountered recently, which have significant green roofs, have made me thinks that there may be hope yet for this city. A Green roof according the Wikipedia: A green roof is…
Tag: korea
Culture gap: no 4th floor
F(ourth) floor is 4th floor in Korea No 13th floor (photo credit: eggrollstan) The 4th floor in Korea has the same status as the 13th floor does in the US. The pronunciation for “4” is “sa” which is the same as the Chinese character for “death”, hence the “F” (for Fourth) instead of “4” in…
The dilemma of content sharing for universities
Republished from UXforGood.org. Recently I’ve participated in brainstorming session for a premier university in Korea on how to make its lectures available online. Ever since MIT started offering its lectures through its OpenCourseWare (website) initiative in late 2002, many higher education institutions have been offering lectures online through various channels: YouTube and iTunes just to…
Korean government offers generous loan terms for poor college students
In a followup to a previous post, Breaking the Cycle of Poverty in Korea through Education: A Social Business Proposal I saw some very exciting news that the Korean government will move to provide long-term full tuition coverage student loans for poor students starting 2010. It even stipulates that the students are only required to…
Breaking the Cycle of Poverty in Korea through Education: A Social Business Proposal
Preamble1 A couple of years ago I asked a friend in Korea with a single child if he considered having more kids. He told me that he wanted to give the best for his son, and he couldn’t really afford the education cost of a second child. He told me a his son was taking…
Farewell to “Foolish President” Roh Moo-hyun
Koreans paying their last respects before motorcade leaves Seoul. (Photo credit: ohmynews.com) Former president of Korea Roh Moo-hyun (2003-2007) died of severe head injuries suffered in a suicide attempt on May 23. Today (May 29) saw his national funeral and cremation. Thousands gathered in the city center to pay their last respects. I was no…
Autumn Colors of Korea
Autumn in Namhan-San-Seong Autumn is by far the most spectacular season in Korea, in my opinion. Since the 70% of Korea is mountainous, the transformation of color is quite dramatic. These photos were taken in Namhan-San-Seong Park, located about half-an-hour from Bundang where I live. Growing up in Korea, going to visit Namhan-San-Seong always seemed…
New Job, New City
JINA Architects I formally started working at JINA Architects on September 1, as an Associate Partner. After a 9 year hiatus, I am back in architecture. Well not quite. It’s urbanism. JINA Architects is a more than a design studio. It’s currently has about 140 staff, a huge growth from having just over 30 a…
Thoughts on Sustainability or How to Grow Vegetables in the City
Community Garden in Bundang, KoreaThe sign reads: No gardening. The land is owned by Korea Land Corporation and will soon be sold and developed, therefore any cultivation is forbidden. No compensation shall be made for any damages to illegally cultivated goods. May 2005. – Korea Land Corporation It is said that what is everybody’s is…
Cytogether: Cyworld’s Social Action Network
Recently I decided to take a systematically look at online social action sites in Korea, and whenever possible trying to arrange an informal interview with the sites’ manager(s) to gain a little more insight into their operations and also get a better general sense of the landscape for online social action in Korea. How is…