SeoulOne by UNStudio: A New 10-Minute City

With SeoulOne, UNStudio and Hyundai Development Company rethink how a large brownfield site in northeast Seoul can evolve into a car-free, multigenerational neighbourhood rather than a conventional high-rise enclave. The masterplan frames everyday life as a “grand circle of life”, where living, working and leisure remain within a 10-minute walk for residents of all ages.

From Industrial Rail Yard to 10-Minute City

The 405,000 m2 site was previously an industrial and railway landscape, physically cutting surrounding neighbourhoods from each other. In the SeoulOne masterplan this barrier becomes a connective platform: a continuous, elevated pedestrian ground that absorbs logistics and traffic below while keeping the daily life of residents above car-free and calm.

Access is managed by an outer ring of vehicular roads that leads directly to underground parking, leaving the central plate for walking, cycling, play and informal encounters. Pedestrian bridges extend this new ground plane into adjacent districts, reducing travel times to key hubs such as Gangnam to as little as eight minutes by metro.

A Multigenerational Circle of Life

SeoulOne stages a deliberately mixed-use and multigenerational model. Housing types, wellness residences, student and public dormitories, senior living, daycare and medical care are woven around shared outdoor rooms. Instead of separating age groups into different buildings or compounds, the plan encourages families, singles and elders to share services and public spaces.

Every two residential towers are linked by M-community podium levels, creating horizontal layers for collective amenities such as lounges, community kitchens, fitness rooms and gardens. These intermediate strata soften the transition between city and private home and give residents a recognisable address not only in the skyline, but also at the social scale of their daily routines.

Car-Free Platforms and Green Topography

The massing of SeoulOne responds to the nearby mountainous landscape in the north-east of the city. Building silhouettes follow a soft topography, stepping down towards plazas, water gardens and courtyards. Long visual corridors open to the distant hills and sky, reinforcing a sense of orientation that is often missing in dense developments.

More than 30 percent of the site is dedicated to vegetation and water, from forest walks and roof gardens to pocket parks and urban plazas. These green and blue networks are not leftover spaces; they are treated as a continuous ecological system that supports biodiversity, manages stormwater and offers outdoor rooms for sports, play and quiet retreat throughout all four seasons.

The Cube as Urban Landmark

At the western edge, The Cube becomes the most visible landmark and anchor of SeoulOne. This hybrid building layers a large retail mall, collaborative office floors and a hotel with stepped roof terraces into a single, compact volume. A secondary Cube Nest connected by a sky bridge adds entertainment, fitness and additional retail, turning the ensemble into a small city within the city.

Inside The Cube, office floors are wrapped around a tall atrium planted as a green courtyard. A sweeping internal ramp connects levels in a slow, continuous movement, encouraging informal meetings and chance encounters. Above, stepped skylights draw daylight deep into the workspace, reducing reliance on artificial lighting and supporting healthier working conditions.

SeoulOne is framed as both a social and environmental experiment: a testbed for cleaner energy systems, smart-city technologies and local materials inspired by traditional Korean ceramics. By transforming a disused railway yard into a pedestrian-first, mixed-use district, UNStudio positions SeoulOne as a prototype for future urban developments in South Korea and beyond. The project underlines how a 10-minute city can be dense yet humane, technologically advanced yet grounded in landscape and community, continuing the studio’s long-term agenda of resilient urban design.