Songdo International Business District

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Korean spelling
Korean alphabet : 송도 신도시
Hanja : 松 島 新 都市
Revised Romanization : Songdo sin-dosi
McCune-Reischauer : Songdo sin-tosi

Songdo City , also called New Songdo City or Songdo New City , is a planned city as part of the megacity Incheon in South Korea . The area is about 40 kilometers southwest of the center of the capital Seoul .

Planned city on artificial land

No suitable land could be found in the entire metropolitan area of ​​Seoul for the construction of a larger planned city; practically every larger developable area is already occupied. For this reason, the Songdo International Business District (Songdo IBD) is being built on a polder area of ​​6 square kilometers reclaimed from the Wadden Sea in southern Incheon in the district of Yeonsu-gu in 3 construction phases from 2003 to around 2020 . The urbanization is designed for a resident population of 65–70,000 people. In June 2012, Songdo had a population of 22,000. Songdo is a narrow segment of the upper middle class in the composition of its residents and job owners: poorer and older people are absent. The project is integrated into the issues raised in the city of Incheon on the way free trade zone Incheon Free Economic Zone (IFEZ) to the remaining parts of the seaport and the International Incheon Incheon Airport include. The IFEZ is to create jobs for 340,000 people and is estimated with a total volume of 40 billion US dollars . The urbanization is a cooperation project between the Korean company POSCO and the American property developer Gale International, based in New York City . The master plan comes from the architect group Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF). Planned construction work: living space of around 3.2 million square meters and a further 4.7 million square meters of office, retail and public space. The building mass to be produced here in a purely private sector should correspond to that of Boston City.

The overall project is designed for three construction phases from 2003 to 2020: Phase 1 to 2009, Phase 2 to 2014, Phase 3 to 2020.

The regional planners and their private investors had the intention of building a new city "from a single source" that combines the following advantages:

  • Globally favorable location in East Asia , 34% of the world's population can be reached in 3.5 hours by flight
  • short distance to Incheon International Airport
  • Concentration of financial center , business center and technology center
  • Living, working and leisure time in a sustainable community
  • internationally recognized, certified environmental standards for the construction and operation of the planned city
  • Priority for environmentally friendly individual and public transport
  • Educational, cultural and shopping offers as well as health services on site
  • 40 percent of the areas as parks, green and recreational areas
  • in order to create an urban flair, the streets are delimited with medium-high houses.

The main topics for Songdo City are: international business complex, industrial knowledge and information complex, high-tech bio-complex, Songdo residential city and central city, high-tech industrial area and a complex for port operations and port services (new port logistics, air freight logistics, etc.).

Building history and planning status

After the master plan was approved in 2003, the artificial areas about eight kilometers from central Incheon were created. The Watt polder with about fourteen kilometers long dykes has been filled with around four million cubic meters of earth and mechanically compacted, which has been criticized by environmental and animal rights activists . Because of the silty subsoil, most high-rise structures have to be secured deeply with pile foundations. After completion of the supply infrastructure, the first buildings were erected in 2004. The urban development center in Songdo City is the Convention Center ConvensiA in harmony with the 305 meter high Northeast Asia Trade Tower and the Riverstone Retail Mall at its foot . The conference center, architecturally based on the Sydney Opera House, with 144 meters wide, completely column-free halls was started in 2005 and opened in October 2008.

Panorama of Songdo Central Park (September 27, 2008)

In August 2009, the 40-acre Central Park opened. It has a seawater-filled canal with an electromotive water taxi service.

In September 2009 Incheon University moved to its new campus for nearly 13,000 students in the development area. In September 2010, the Chadwick International School opened to 2,100 students. The Yonsei University opened the so-called International Campus in 2010, which provoked criticism.

Also in 2010 the outside golf course with several hundred integrated villa plots, 25 kilometers of bike paths and the central Northeast Asia Trade Tower were completed. In addition to this skyscraper, there are 9 other high-rise buildings from 170 to 235 meters high. Several quarters had already been completed in the residential buildings, most of which are being built as high-rise apartment buildings.

A hospital according to international standards is to be opened at the end of 2015. A coastal theater - also based on the architecture of the Sydney Opera House - and a museum in Central Park are planned for cultural institutions .

A special feature is the pneumatic waste disposal network. Similar to the pneumatic tube , the waste is transported from each throw-in point in special containers with compressed air to a power plant for biogas production.

Cityscape 2014

Transport links

The most important argument for the good marketability of the planned city is its quick connection to Incheon International Airport in the Seoul area. The Incheon Bridge to the airport island of Yeongjong was opened on October 26, 2009 . Driving from Songdo City to the terminal takes barely 20 minutes. For journeys from Seoul and most cities in the metropolitan area, the new bridge is more than an hour shorter than the previous northern bridge with the Airport Expressway .

Individual traffic will have a wide road network, but should disappear into underground garages if possible, vehicles with low pollutant emissions will primarily be given parking spaces. Sufficient charging stations are available for electric vehicles.

Public transport is served by an extension of Line 1 of the Incheon Subway, which first goes south (University) and then turns west (Central Park). This line is connected to the Seoul Subway via Incheon Center ; the journey to the northern center of Seoul is time consuming with around 40 stops. Omnibuses take care of the fine distribution from the subway stations in Songdo City.

Smart city concept

Songdo City already implements many elements of a networked Smart City : all people who live or work here are involved in permanent data collection: video surveillance of the public space right into the houses, smart cards with multifunctional functions such as public transport, health care, apartment access, banking services, etc. Individual consumption data, access data, etc. are collected in the apartments so that movement images are created. The city states that the data could provide information on energy optimization or absence information for people living alone. The networking should bring about 30% energy and resource savings compared to conventional cities.

Web links

Commons : Songdo International Business District  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d Wojciech Czaja: Green things take time . In: The Standard . June 17, 2012. Retrieved November 15, 2012.
  2. Kwon Mee-yoo: Incheon to Be NE Asian Hub . In: The Korea Times . February 26, 2010 (English). Retrieved November 15, 2012.
  3. Master Plan by Songdo IBD ( Memento of the original from February 2, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: songdo.com (English). Retrieved November 15, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.songdo.com
  4. Tim noblest: Last call for Song Do . In: birdskorea.org from December 2003 (English). Retrieved November 15, 2012.
  5. ^ KPF: Songdo Central Park. ( Memento from June 6, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: kpf.com (English). Retrieved November 15, 2012.
  6. ^ Kwon Mee-yoo: Bringing Central Park to New Songdo City . In: The Korea Times. August 5, 2009 (English). Retrieved November 15, 2012.
  7. ^ Christopher Henry: Songdo International Business District / KPF . In: archdaily.com of March 14, 2011 (English). Retrieved November 15, 2012.
  8. Chadwick International School ( Memento of the original from November 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: songdo.com (English). Retrieved November 15, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.songdo.com
  9. Kwon Mee-yoo: Some Unhappy About Yonsei's New Campus . In: The Korea Times. March 3, 2010 (English). Retrieved November 15, 2012.
  10. Jack Nicklaus Golf Club Korea ( Memento of the original from December 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: songdo.com (English). Retrieved November 15, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.songdo.com
  11. Yun Suh-young: Foreign doctors to be allowed to administer to patients . In: The Korea Times. September 21, 2012 (English). Retrieved November 15, 2012.
  12. Culture ( Memento of the original of November 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: songdo.com (English). Retrieved November 15, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.songdo.com

Coordinates: 37 ° 23 '  N , 126 ° 39'  E