Büro Ole Scheeren plans 364-square-metre threshold-free gallery for Daegu

Büro Ole Scheeren has revealed designs for a 364-square-metre concrete gallery in Daegu, South Korea, that contains no enclosed rooms and no doorways. The Berlin-based studio designed the Suseong Continuum as one continuous space, built to showcase digital art within the city's Yeonhwaji park.

"We wanted to build a gallery without traditional thresholds: a gradient of realities that morph into one another as you gradually move through the space," studio founder Ole Scheeren said.

"The substance of digital art is not rooted in the physical domain of distinct objects and isolated experiences… it exists in a world of overlaps and connections, where one condition potentially flows into the next," he added. "Landscape, circulation and exhibition become a continuous experience," the studio said.

What does the design look like?

The Suseong District Government commissioned the project, and the studio expects it to open for the Suseong International Biennale's 2028 edition. That biennale invites architects to realise permanent public works across Daegu.

Visitors will reach the gallery along a winding path, from which the building emerges as an extrusion. The twisting volume, conceived as a "continuation of the landscape", will sit partially embedded in the park's topography and face a nearby lotus pond.

The structure will use board-marked concrete for a rough exterior texture. Inside, that texture shifts to smooth concrete walls suited to projecting media onto. According to the studio, both layout and materiality track the transition from the park's natural landscape to the digital interiors.

"Technology is often seen as an opposite to nature," Scheeren said. "With Suseong Continuum we wanted to explore how we can create a way of extending the way we perceive the relationship between both domains – a journey that starts in the park and that seamlessly carries you into the digital realm."

"There is no single moment where one world ends and the other begins, it is a continuous transformation," he said. "What begins as natural landscape gradually transforms into digital media," the studio added.

How will the interior work?

Renders show a stripped-back interior with immersive exhibition spaces framed by curving walls. A layered ceiling will run the building's full length, concealing all lighting and technical infrastructure. The studio developed that technical package with the Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe.

"The interior unfolds as a spatial gradient in which light, sound, enclosure and immersion shift gradually along the visitor's route," the studio said. "Curving walls widen into open spaces and tighten into passages; atmospheres transform rather than switch."

The design remains on show at the Suseong International Biennale until 22 November. For practitioners, the project pairs with the studio's other current cultural work: the Róng Museum of Arts is under construction, and the firm has revealed skyscrapers with "waterfall" facades in Shenzhen.