Proposals by architects MAD, BIG, INABA, and Mass Studies for an urban plan for the city of Ansan in South Korea are on show at the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art in Ansan.

At the invitation of the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art (GMoMA), the offices designed a master plan and a set of four buildings in the city where the museum is located. The plan for a riverfront area of Ansan, a city of 550,000 inhabitants located near Seoul, includes housing, commercial, retail and municipal spaces. The proposed buildings which range in height from 80 to 400 meters and in length up to 1500 meters are displayed in themuseum lobby in drawings, animations and four large models.

As an experiment in the economies of scale, the models are also designed as inhabitable objects in their own right. Each model of their urban plan is a furniture piece of their lobby plan. The three-dimensional representations of the buildings function as elements of GMoMA’s interior serving as a new bookshop, a set of seats and tables, a lounge area, and a reception kiosk. As a third variation, the forms will be produced at an even smaller scale as a reading lamp, light fixture, puzzle, and toy.

At first glance, these proposals represent a new urban plan for the city: a suite of would-be ‘iconic’ and monumental new buildings. Yet the proposals also function at a different scale: in the gallery itself, the models used to advertise each project take on a new role, as furniture for the gallery space.

Given today’s economic instability, the architects propose an architecture that can be sized to accommodate changes in available funding. The forms have been developed so that if a project’s investment capital decreases, it can be scaled down; alternatively, if greater financing becomes available, the same form can be scaled up. These firms believe architecture does not have to be inhabitable and in tune with the human scale at just one size; it can be conceived with greater utility in mind so that the form can be enjoyed even when reduced or increased by 40, 50, or 60 percent. In the contextof the exhibition, they have taken the idea of scalability further by developing works that function even when scaled 1,000 and 10,000 percent.

MAD’s contribution to the exhibition is named ‘Beautiful Minds’, an artificial and intelligent response to Ansan’s natural environment. At the urban scale, the project takes the form of a cultural pyramid, topped with tentacles which suspend inspiration pods high above the distractions of the city. Meanwhile, as furniture, the project provides a place to sit, read, and learn. Here, the tentacles provide a different kind of illumination. ‘This project aims to promote urban intelligence. It exists at two different scales: urban scale and furniture scale, public and private, conceptual and real. Inspired by the beautiful natural landscape of Ansan, the project seeks to create something artificial and intelligent in response. … At all scales, this object aims to encourage imagination. Both building and furniture provide the same environment: a place for people to think, an environment to develop Beautiful Minds.’

Mutated Slabs and Robotic Towers by MASS Studies. ‘Radically different functional forms – mutated slabs and robotic towers – create spatial diversity and playfulness within themuseum lobby. The larger picture presents two new urban typologies that shape an urban identity for an Ansan  futurama.’

Urban Porosity by BIG. ‘A shifting stack of building blocks constitutes a two faced architectural structure. One side an inhabitable bookshelf, on the other a new urban landscape for Ansan.’

Walk This Way by INABA. ‘Walk This Way is a wayfinding device impersonating a building. It is an architectural beacon that directs traffic to Ansan’s attractions: one arrow points people in the directionof the development area proposed by BIG INABA MAD MASS, the other points inhabitants to city’s center.’

The exhibition will be held 18 Dec. 2008 ~ 15 Feb. 2009.