[DIALOGUE] Where Computational Design Stands Now: Materials, Tools, Matter | Yong Ju Lee Architecture
photographed by
Yong Ju Lee Architecture (unless otherwise indicated)
materials provided by
Yong Ju Lee Architecture
edited by
Park Jiyoun
SPACE November 2025 (No. 696)
DIALOGUE Yong Ju Lee principal, Yong Ju Lee Architecture × Yoon Jungwon professor, University of Seoul × Jeong Haewook co-principal, Midday
Context and Choice
Yoon Jungwon (Yoon): I’ve followed your work from a distance since your time in the U.S. Back then, you produced many multimedia installations and computational works, but after returning to Korea you engaged in more conventional building and public projects. Later, upon joining a university, your focus shifted towards more research-oriented, prototypebased design. Why did these shifts in your design priorities occur?
Yong Ju Lee (Lee): I simply followed what I could do according to my circumstances. Around 2010, when I was in the U.S. working on media-based projects, the Lehman Brothers crisis hit, and there were virtually no job opportunities. I had about a year left on my visa, so a friend of mine – who was also doing computer-based work – and I decided to try something, which led us to experiment with what we considered the most cutting-edge medium at the time: media art. When I returned to Korea I didn’t have an established professional foundation, so I began with public architecture projects. After joining a university, I was expected to conduct research, but since most architectural papers in Korea are case studies, I wanted to pursue both design and research together. That naturally brought me back to the field of computation. In retrospect, I think I’m finally doing what I truly want to do now.
Yoon: Were you interested in computation and digital design even as a student?
Lee: That’s right. I never really connected with the emotionally driven approach to spatial design, and around that time I came across architects such as Greg Lynn, Ben van Berkel, and Marcos Novak, who were working in digital architecture. In the early 2000s, this architectural tendency was just beginning to draw attention in Korea. I was fascinated by those strange graphics, so I took a leave of absence from school and learned 3D Max at a private academy. Later, I learned that Columbia University on the east coast was a leading institution in digital architecture, which led me to study there.
Yoon: That’s quite a different path from mine. I actually tried to avoid using those tools but ended up working with them anyway! (laugh) I can also see certain continuities between your projects—each one seems to become the motivation for the next, leading to its reiteration or evolution.
Lee: Since we were working with emerging technologies that hadn’t yet been established in the field of architecture, we often didn’t know where the work would ultimately lead. In such a state, the designer has to bring the project to a close on their own terms. In my case as well, I did as much as I could within the bounds of my way of thinking at the time, the given circumstances, and the grade of technology available—but a sense of incompleteness always remained. I often thought it would be good to revisit and further ...
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Yoon Jungwon
Yoon Jungwon is a professor at the school of architecture, University of Seoul. She studied architecture at Seoul National University and Princeton University. Having participated in a wide range of architectural projects in the United States and the Netherlands, she gained experience in comprehensive approaches to architectural composition and in interdisciplinary collaboration with experts from various fields. Currently, she directs the TAD Lab and her own architectural practice, both of which aim to continuously bridge education, research, and design practice through transdisciplinary architectural design. As the curator of architectural production for the 5th Gwangju Folly, she coordinated processes ranging from the sourcing and production to the application of raw materials such as waste resources, natural materials, and traditional materials. Her recent research focuses on digital fabrication using bio-waste materials.
Jeong Haewook
Jeong Haewook is the co-principal of Midday and an adjunct professor at Korea University. Midday engages in publishing, writing, exhibitions, and practice, developing a line of thought on ‘architecture that exists prior to buildings’ and ‘the orders and aesthetics beneath architectural surfaces’. Jeong has co-authored two books – Architecture as Fabulated Reality and Upperhouse-Oriented – and pursues projects that expand architectural reality across diverse media. In 2024, he was featured in the Junglim Foundation’s programme, ‘Emerging Architects’.
Yong Ju Lee
Yong Ju Lee is an architect who pursues experimentation across all layers of space. His works, spanning diverse scales and media, seek to provoke and inspire everyday life. He has exhibited at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA), Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and the Venice Biennale, and received the Korea Public Architecture Award, iF Design Award, and Architectural Record’s Design Vanguard. He studied architecture at Yonsei University and Columbia University, and is currently an assistant professor at Seoul National University of Science and Technology, leading the Robotic Fabrication Studio. He published Constructing Thought (2024).
