Seoul City Announces Design Competition for Digital Finance Support Center... First Step Toward Yeouido Financial Hub

The first step in the Yeouido Financial Hub development project, promoted by Mayor Oh Se-hoon, is about to begin. On the 3rd, Seoul City announced that it will hold a design competition for domestic and international architects from the 31st of last month to the 30th of next month, a period of 61 days, to build the ‘Digital Finance Support Center.’

Seoul City is pushing forward with the construction of the Digital Finance Support Center, aiming to open it in March 2027. The competition site is located near Yeouido Park at 119 Yeouigongwon-ro, Yeongdeungpo-gu, with a site area of 529㎡. The total project cost is approximately 29.4 billion KRW, and the center is planned to be built with a total floor area of 4,463㎡.

The Digital Finance Support Center will serve as a ‘Digital Finance Hub’ overseeing digital finance support functions. It will be developed as an anchor facility for strengthening digital finance talent capabilities, providing collaborative infrastructure and scale-up support for fintech companies, and facilitating organic linkage and integration between existing support facilities and regions.

The Digital Finance Support Center will perform the role of a digital finance hub by connecting existing support facilities such as Seoul Fintech Lab, the Seoul International Finance Center (SIFC), and the International Finance Office, as well as the Yeouido financial district, traditional finance in the city center, and venture capital in the Gangnam area.

Seoul City has decided to improve the design competition system to enhance the quality and transparency of the evaluation process. The number of pre-briefing sessions for judges will be increased to two, held before and after the competition announcement, and the entire evaluation process will be made public.

Until now, Seoul City held one pre-briefing session for the judging committee after the design competition announcement, but to improve evaluation quality, the ‘Digital Finance Support Center Construction Design Competition’ will hold two pre-briefing sessions for judges before and after the announcement.

Since 2019, Seoul City has applied a paperless ‘digital competition and evaluation’ system with an open public evaluation method for citizens and has been steadily working to establish a fair and rational design competition system.

Companies wishing to participate in the ‘Digital Finance Support Center’ construction design competition can register through the Seoul City design competition website by the 30th of next month.

A site briefing session will be held on the 6th for registered participants. After submitting design proposals, technical reviews and two rounds of evaluations will be conducted, with the final winning design announced on June 23rd.

Both domestic and international architects are eligible to participate, and up to three people can apply jointly. However, if only foreign architect qualifications are held, participation must be in collaboration with a domestic architect.

The judging panel consists of six members: Kwon Hyun-cheol, Vice President of A Group Architects Office; Kim Hyun-jung, CEO of Ground Architects Office; Maeng Pil-su, Professor at Hongik University; Lee Eun-kyung, CEO of EMA Architects Office; and Lee Jin-oh, CEO of The Sai Architects Office. Han Tae-hee, CEO of Cloud Nine Architects Office, has been selected as an alternate judge.

Hong Seon-gi, Director of Future Space Planning at Seoul City, said, “Through this design competition, the construction of facilities to establish a foundation for the growth of the international financial city in Yeouido has been officially launched. We will do our best to ensure that talented and creative architects participate actively so that the Digital Finance Support Center becomes a globally recognized facility.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.