Abstract:
North and South Korea have now been separated for sixty-four years along a heavily mined barbed wire entanglement called the 38th parallel border, and this border has been constructed with a Demilitarised Zone-a no man’s land- located in between two nations. This boundary does not only act as a physical barrier, but as a psychological barrier as well. This DMZ has been abandoned for over 60 years while restricting access to the public to one village in between, which has contributed to the creation of the DMZ’s own unique ecosystem that is considered by both sides as potentially a highly valuable resource. DMZ contains many unique species of wildlife that hardly exist anywhere else in the Korean peninsula. The desire for conserving the natural world within the DMZ led to the formation of numerous proposals which ended up with disappointing results. The intention of this architectural thesis is to analyse mechanisms for preserving the unique nature of the DMZ while speculating the DMZ area will be highly urbanised after the unification. The 38th parallel border between the two nations is the dominant object that symbolises ‘Separation’ for Koreans both physically and psychologically. Implying positive meanings into the new architectural interventions on the 38th parallel border will lead to switching the purpose of the cold border into ‘collaboration’. For DMZ animals to be preserved it is necessary to define the habitable environment and its potential design contributions that can possibly solve the environmental issues while solving the old dilemma that has arisen from political segregation of the two Koreas.