The Convensia Convention Center forms an essential component of the New Songdo City’s development as an international business hub. The New Songdo City is a completely planned city in Incheon Free Economic Zone, South Korea.
KPF has conceived the center as a low-rise complex, presented as a series of folded roof planes. This acts as a landscape that widens the natural setting of the adjacent Central Park into the city. A head-house area, designed as a long, sweeping volume accommodating meeting rooms, the ballroom, and administrative spaces, articulates the relationship between the convention center and the Central Park. A 70-story mixed-use tower, a 30-story hotel, and a retail mall are also featured in the Convention Center block.
The large-scale folds are segments of arcs that contain the convention center’s main programmatic elements, encompassing exhibition halls, pre-function areas, support space, and the loading zone. A series of freestanding blocks houses support spaces, above which the curved roofs float like a series of upturned boat hulls. The planar areas between these hull-shaped forms are folded upward to create a succession of large, gable-like openings. These openings thrust the pre-function areas outward, engaging the street and providing light-filled gathering spaces for visitors.
KPF has incorporated boat elements which are shaped like large bow-trusses as the primary structural system for the convention center. These elements support a 144-meter-long, column-free span. The Convensia Convention Center with the alternating gable and boat forms resembles the uneven shape of the surrounding Korean mountain ranges.
Host of sustainable elements have also been incorporated into the structure such as low-e glazing, designated parking for electric vehicles, and gray-water system.
