Airport Town

Oops, I almost forgot to talk about yesterday. The day in South Korea I actually did work.

Started off walking around the International Business Center, of which my hotel is a part. I was wrong, it isn't exactly like taking Century Boulevard and plopping it on an island near Seoul, its more like Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. For an area that is completely disconnected to EVERYWHERE else in the world, it has quite a well-designed public realm. The sidewalks, with street cafes and copius amounts of vegetation, would be respectable in any American city.

There are 7 12-story buildings lining one side of the street, with the other being taken up by the airport's headquarters building and a massive park. For whom this park, with basketball courts and soccer fields, was built for is anyone's guess. There isn't any housing here except for the hotels and I don't see too many tourist groups dropping their luggage to go play a game of soccer. To put it midly, it looks like an American planning firm didn't quite look at their context and actually thought they were building a new downtown in a city somewhere (god, I hope SOM didn't do this project or I'm toast) .

Maybe, years from now, when I return to see the Dalki Theme Park (see below) this place will be built out a bit, but I kinda doubt it. There is a hell of a lot of empty office space in those buildings. I went in a few of them and checked their directories. Most had like one or two tenants each. The retail building "Air Joy" next door even closed off a number of its floors because they weren't selling enough. It kinda makes me worry about this whole airport urbanism idea.

It is, however, amazing how successful the retail is on the street below. Or, should I say, that the entire ground floor area of every building is fully leased with retail uses. Now, most of them are convenience stores (I count five in the seven buildings), but there are also a good number of restaurants and bars. As to who actually frequents these places, that's anyone's guess. Though, I think i would come back again for the sweet potato sandwich I had today (again, see below).

My little International Business Center, however, isn't the only piece of urbanity grafted onto this airport island, for there is also Airport Town. Like Tung Chung in Hong Kong, this is the town built for all the workers at the airport. It is actually pretty large and, oddly enough, quite successful. One thing I haven't worked through yet is that the entire downtown area of the town looks like it could have come from any other major Asian city, Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai. What I mean to say is that, though this was built maybe 5-10 years ago, it looks like its been there forever. I've never seen anything quite like it.

That being said, there are signs of its newness, the whole place does feel a bit dusty, like a Western boom town right after construction. But somehow, it doesn't feel too new, or too deadening, like most new projects do.

Of course, the downtown is surrounded by the requisite Corbusier-style towers in the park (however, due to its location, they can only reach 8 or so stories). Walking around them, though, they actually seem quite nice. The landscaping is at least somewhat maintained. I walked around as children were being let out of school and they all seemed happy.

What would have been really interesting is if they could have put the International Business Center into Airport Town. Then, we would definitely have something.

Or, perhaps, like alchemy, it would prove impossible.

After that, i went into Seoul, but I'll leave that for another posting... (Let's just say the subway system here rocks)

One last thing, last night for dinner I had sushi at the Hyatt next door. This Hyatt will forever be known as the record holder for my most expensive beer ever - $11 bucks (not including tip). Not to be outdone, I paid $110 for my hotel, The Best Western, to launder 8 shirts, a few pairs of socks and some underwear. Woo Hoo and I thought Dubai would be the expensive place.