4.2.1. Case study 2- Ghosted town of Songdo, South Korea

4.3.1. Case Study 2- Ghosted town of Songdo, South Korea

Figure 21. Songdo aerial view

Location -Songdo, South Korea

Year of completion -1997

Architect - Paolo Soleri

typology -city planning

Programme -futuristic city

Intent -Understanding voids in architecture.

Songdo on South Korea’s northeast coast was built from scratch and was designed around technology with computers built into streets and condos to control traffic. It was planned

to contain 80,000 apartments, 50 million square feet (5 million square metres) of office

space and 10 million square feet (900,000 square metres) of retail space. The city is

embracing two key concepts – the first is Aerotropolis which means the airport is

integrated in to the urban centre, as we are moving towards more interconnectivity in the

world and air traveling is becoming prominent. The second key theme is ubiquitous city

which is a Korean concept where every device, service, component is linked to an

information network through wireless computing technology. This brings a coordination

and synchronization within the city. The city is equipped with such smart systems and one

notable example is the Songdo’s trash system, pneumatic rubbish chutes would suck in

garbage directly from your homes and transforms it to the treatment facility to be

recycled later on to make electricity.

Reasons for its abandonment-

1. It failed to bring in big companies and investors.

2.The cost of living there is very high.

3. The large city has no culture, no museums, theatres or cinemas. The city is empty on

the weekends.

A failure to lure in companies and investors means many of the city's building plots are

still empty (pictured). To make the city more internationally acclaimed and attract

foreigners, the local Korean entities were neglected thus making the place strange and foreign. The world’s first smart city with a $40 billion budget looks anything but smart. It

lies abandoned now and has turned into a ghost town. The residents were promised a

futuristic city where front doors would be controlled by remote controls. 15 years have

passed since the Songdo project began and the city is less than half built and it feels like a

deserted prison. Though erecting an entire city from scratch is a remarkable concept and

the city was able to produce the high-tech infrastructure as equipped as any futuristic city,

but still the lack of traditional and cultural deposition the city is termed as lost and

ghosted.