Seoul is taking amazing steps to transform grey and obsolete infrastructure into lively green and social spaces. The Weaves is a design that introduces natural landscape combined with exceptional, varied access.
– Winy Maas

MVRDV, working with local studio NOW Architects, have won a competition to redevelop Seoul's Tancheon waterfront as a public park called The Weaves, with a mix of natural ecosystems, pathways and places for recreation.

Commissioned by the government of Seoul, the project covers a 630,000sq m (6,800,000sq ft) area between the city's former Olympic Stadium and its central business district in Gangnam, as well as a stretch along the Han River.

Sections of the site are currently built up with car parking and highway infrastructure, but the aim is to return it to a more natural state, replacing hard landscaping with greenery and reverting a canal to its river state.

A network of interconnected pedestrian and bicycle paths is planned, with an integrated programme of plazas, viewing points, amphitheatres, cafés and other amenities.

MVRDV also intends to make adaptive reuse of a variety of decommissioned infrastructure on the site, including a highway ramp adjacent to the Tancheon River that will be transformed into a raised park.

Winy Maas, founding partner at MVRDV, said: "Seoul is taking amazing steps to transform grey and obsolete infrastructure into lively green and social spaces. The Weaves is a design that introduces natural landscape combined with exceptional, varied access.

"It also responds to the local identity. Jamsil is known for its history of silk production and the design recalls the tangled silk threads of its past in a unique and playful way. It becomes an intertwining poem where movement becomes landscape poetry."

The project is scheduled for completion in 2024.