The renovation of the Nam June Paik Art Center is a new public space project in Yong-In, South Korea. The project attempts to redefine the role of institutional spaces in the city, establishing new multi-functional public areas within the museum. Engaging the ground floor of the Art Center that was previously only partially accessible, and the under-utilized residual space on the second floor around the circulation core, the project opens up the formerly hidden spaces of art to the public and provides the public with rooms to linger, interpret, and exchange, and inhabit the museum in new ways. Challenging the often passive museum lobby architecture, “Open Ground,” the new space on the ground floor, employs three large-scale programmatic zones with strong figural presence and spatial characteristics, designed to extend the duration and intensity that the public interacts with the art and its stories. Combined with reconfigurable elements the three buildings within the building also frame additional user amenities.

Located on the second floor enclosed amid the open gallery is a new space “Flux NJP Playspace,” an area of self learning and topical exploration that includes media integrated furnishings and infrastructure for projections and other future technologies. Curved wall provide immersive surfaces for projections and unexpected spaces for group or personal use and obscure the perception of the confines of the space and the minimum and unusual footprint of the site.