Investigating the Concept of Green City Design Criteria on the Urban Form and User Experience of the New Songdo City in South Korea

Abstract

As part of Koreas reformed developmental strategy, Songdo has been planned as a smart and sustainable city, often regarded as a Green city. Koreas futuristic growth engine has been crusading out rightly to be a Green City by the inclusion of not only green techniques but also in terms of its spatial aspect. At the core of this strategy is the implementation of LEED ND based smart growth criteria to plan sustainable urban design concepts. In spite of much criticism, Songdo still serves as a case study for upcoming Green city projects in developing countries, especially India. Therefore, this study tries to analyze the shortcomings and the strengths if any, in the movement of Green and Eco city led planning of Songdo by highlighting the issues attached with entrepreneur urbanism by illustrating the problems in the spatial form and the user experience. The methodology adopted for carrying out the analysis was analyzing Songdo by comparing it with the LEED ND Guidelines for Green City design and conducting User Experience Surveys and interviews. The LEED ND framework was used to analyze its implementation in the present urban form of Songdo and the survey was used to evaluate the experience of diverse user groups. The analysis was carried out particularly in three domains after combining relevant criteria of LEED ND as per the objective of this study with respect to: Ecology, Location-Mobility and Mixed-Use Development. The analysis concluded with five overarching observations in terms of shortcomings that are being faced in the present situation. They were categorized as (1) Need for integrated transit system, (2) Conflict of identity crisis in terms of land use, (3) Underlying mega scalar modernist planning approach, (4) Loss of ecology and social coherence and (5) Deficiencies in LEED ND guidelines system. In conclusion, this study tries to express that Songdo is dealing with numerous ideologies and targets in terms of global, economic and ecological aspirations. In doing so, it has misplaced the foundational features of a sustainable city that thrives on social cohesion, ecological respect and serious implementation of green city principles. At the same time, in doing so LEED ND only serves as a means of compliance rather than serving as a sincere guide for implementation.