[ESSAY] Collaborative Intelligence and Organisational Design in Response to the Societal Demands of Our Times | Junglim Architecture

SPACE May 2026 (No. 702) 

 

 

NAVER Data Center GAK Sejong ©Jang Mi 

 

 

For over 60 years, Junglim Architecture has presented architectural solutions to the contemporary challenges faced by the nation (in terms of its cities, markets, culture, and wider society) informed by collaborative intelligence and organisational design. Our history is not merely an accumulation of the achievements of individual architectures, but rather an attitude and a process of translating, spatially, the structural demands of our epoch. Since our foundation in 1967 we have been implementers, spatially realising state-led growth strategies and urban development during the transition from post-war recovery to the pursuit of policies of developing nations, industrialisation, technological modernisation and urban redevelopment. Following the end of the Cold War and Korea’s democratisation in the late 1980s, alongside the reconfiguration of national symbols, we played a role in designing public infrastructure and the nation’s image in light of the flow of globalisation. From the late 1990s onwards, following the IMF financial crisis, society was restructured around a neoliberal and private-sector-led economy, and the demand for specialised, subdivided architectural design to support the qualitative growth of cities increased rapidly. Consequently, Junglim Architecture shifted its focus from state-led architecture to market- and industry-centred architecture, evolving into specialist designers of spatial platforms for office, IT, exhibition, tourism, leisure, commercial and medical infrastructure. Following the global financial crisis of the late 2000s, cities were restructured around consumption, leisure, and experiential activities, with architecture expanding to become both a commodity and a public stage for the city. In the face of these changes, we have designed cities of experience by transforming office, commercial, residential and leisure facilities into new public spaces through large-scale, mixed-use developments and urban regeneration projects.