Seoul Searching: From Post-Graduation Trip to the “Perfect Project”

Thirteen years ago, just after I graduated, Misha and I packed our backpacks and took off on a six-month trip across East Asia. We had a loose plan—start in India and come back when we run out of money. Korea wasn’t high on our list. But it ended up stealing the show.

We fell in love with everything—its nature and cities, the food, the architecture, the people, and the coffee culture (which we still talk about to this day). We didn’t expect to be so moved by Seoul, with its mix of ancient and modern, quiet alleys and bold culture. But something about it stayed with us.

In 2024, over a decade later, we had the opportunity to work on a large-scale redevelopment project in Seoul. The site was exactly the kind of challenge we like: centrally located, near two major subway stations, but cut off by freeways on almost all sides. And yet, we saw it as the ideal place to test something we had been developing for years—a way to design tall neighbourhoods that still feel charming and vibrant.

Fish market in Busan with seafood vendors, fresh fish displays, and a busy market atmosphere.
Fish Market in Busan, South Korea
Naama Blonder & Misha Bereznyak, 2012
Traditional Korean architecture in Seoul with hanok buildings, tiled roofs, and historic courtyard details.
Traditional Korean architecture in Seoul
Narrow street designed as a shared space for pedestrians, cyclists, and local car access.
A narrow street creates a calm shared space where pedestrians, cyclists, and local car access can coexist at a human scale.v

What is it that most tall neighbourhoods lack? We believe it’s two things: vibrancy and charm. Old neighbourhoods have both. They draw people in with their energy, surprise, warmth, and human scale. But new high-density areas often feel cold, stretched out, or generic.

So in this project, we aimed to prove that it’s not density that’s the problem—it’s how you design it.

We looked closely at two types of neighbourhoods in Seoul:

  • The low-rise areas—tight-knit, quiet, full of character. But they can’t accommodate much growth without losing livability.

  • The high-rise neighbourhoods—efficient, green, full of potential. But often missing life on the ground.

Our approach combined the best of both: towers for density, but a public realm that feels small and welcoming. Low-rise edges to shape the street. Narrow blocks and short sightlines. Pedestrian-only promenades that connect the key destinations without exposing people to cars. And careful layering of open space—some social, some private, all well-proportioned.

The result is a neighbourhood where 75% of the floor area sits in towers, but the experience on the ground is of a walkable, lively, people-first place. A place that feels like it has always been there.

We didn’t set out to design our “perfect project.” But we knew it when we saw it. And more than a decade after wandering the streets of Seoul as young travellers, we created a concept for what one of its future neighbourhoods could be—rooted in what we loved about the past, but built for what cities need next.

That project became the foundation of our book Building Charm, where we explore how to bring vibrancy and warmth to new urban places, even at scale.

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