Sunmi Yoon of Chonnam National University Wins Gold Prize at World's Top Garden Design Competition

Show Garden Category at the 2025 Malvern Spring Festival

Artist Sunmi Yoon and artist Ru Wonjuen celebrating the gold prize win, and artist Rikou Ueda who collaborated on the creation of the Garden of Wind. Photo by Encore PR

Chonnam National University announced on May 29 that Sunmi Yoon, a master's student in the Department of Landscape Architecture, has won the gold prize in the Show Garden category at the world's most prestigious international garden design competition.

Yoon recently received the gold prize in the Show Garden category at the 2025 Malvern Spring Festival, organized by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) in the United Kingdom. A total of eight garden works were submitted to this year's competition, and among them, three received the honor of the gold prize.

This achievement marks an extraordinary record for Yoon, who has now won awards for two consecutive years, following her bronze prize last year. She is also the only Korean ever among the winners in the history of this competition.

The Malvern Spring Festival, together with the Chelsea Flower Show and the Hampton Garden Festival, is one of the world's top three garden festivals organized by the RHS. It is a global event where leading garden designers from around the world compete in creativity, philosophy, and construction techniques in garden design.

The award-winning work, "Garden of the Wind," is a contemporary reinterpretation of the aesthetics of traditional Eastern philosophy. Yoon was inspired by the fact that the English word "wind" is pronounced the same as "hope," and created a garden designed to evoke a sense of hope in visitors whenever the wind blows. The garden reflects the freedom and natural flow unconstrained by fixed forms, delivering an aesthetic that is both sensory and conceptual.

This project also included collaboration with Japanese artist Rikou Ueda. Ueda designed a structure that dynamically expresses the movement of the wind, which serves as an observatory allowing visitors to appreciate the garden from various angles. This structure was highlighted as a key element that intuitively conveys the overall atmosphere of the garden.

Environmental sustainability was also an important design criterion. Yoon prioritized the use of recycled materials, minimized the use of cement, and planned for most materials to be returned to suppliers or reused in garden construction projects in the Midlands region of the UK after the exhibition. This approach was recognized as an example of how garden design can harmonize with environmental concerns.

Last year, Yoon participated in the same festival with a work titled "GREEN ISLANDS," for which she received the bronze prize. She is currently the CEO of "Rock Design," a company specializing in garden and space design and construction, balancing creative work with practical projects. The award-winning piece also featured the participation of Lu Wenjuan, a Chinese artist active in the UK. The two have continued their collaboration since their joint showcase at a window display exhibition in the UK.

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