South Korea X North Korea

The Joint Security Area (JSA) has an infamous legacy as the only place in the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) where North and South Korean forces come face to face. Considering the radical insulation and separation of the two groups, it is amazing that there is even a physical place where some amount of cross-border interaction is permitted. The site is already idiosyncratic: the existing lightly coloured, small, blue buildings sharply contrast the gray monoliths and militarized architecture that characterizes the rest of the DMZ. Furthermore, both countries have agreed to shift the area’s military focus and reorient towards a place for tourism. Keeping these unique factors, might there be a possibility to catapult this glimpse of cross-border interaction into something more substantial? Not to mention, I hear Kim Jong-un likes to hoop - somebody call Rodman and lets get this party started! 

This proposal transforms these three buildings into a place for public leisure and basketball. It does this by interjecting a soft, yellow shed as a canopy that connects the three separate existing structures. The canopy partially encloses the existing cross-border alleyways, and this gives life to leveraging these alleyways as the space for two long, skinny basketball courts. The walls from the middle structure are removed, opening up circulation between the two alleyways, creating space for spectating as well as niche spaces for smaller, more informal courts with hoops at different heights; some even above the roof! The spectating space has light, cubed modules that can be easily reconfigured to produce a flexible spectating experience as well as amplify or condense the size of the smaller courts.