CHANGed UP ground: a place where start-up ventures can be united

Change Up Ground, a start-up support center planned for Pohang University of Science and Technology as a research-oriented space preparing for the future industry, is a central hub for fostering start-up venture companies. It should be the center of youth start-up programs as a space where research in various fields interacts and communicates. The space of the start-up support center should be an architecture that creates a platform where ventures can interact each others then be united. The platform of the start-up support center is open and suggests a method of converging across each other. Programs are classified into four categories: individual research spaces for concentration, shared research spaces for collaboration, and spaces for relaxation and communication, and the composition relationship of these programs leads to architectural forms. Atrium is filled with freely combined shared spaces, and individual research spaces surround it while floating in the air. The atmosphere created by the combination of rest areas combined with natural lighting gardens with other programs is reminiscent of an ecosystem that works well in harmony. Change up Ground is an architecture that acquires a degree of freedom that is open to possibilities as a space to dream of the future. As a floating architecture, we try to apply the concept of floating, which acquires degrees of freedom. Through weightless thinking, various diversity that can be achieved through the philosophy of lightness has been established. The box of the basic unit that makes up the venture is composed of the mass of the middle platform, and the combination of boxes stacked in the lower part is made by mirroring the mass combination of the lower floor in the upper part. The architecture opened by floating is free from physical reality and acts as a powerful tool to connect the urban relationship with other architecture surrounding the site. If we simply want the urban context to be achieved through a combination of similar masses, we thought that the futuristic context requires a new architectural form created by the urban role. The degree of freedom of the ground level as an intermediate medium naturally acts as a device to strengthen and attract interdisciplinary communication. It is a response to the urban trend. The most urban architecture is the setting of a relationship that embraces the flow without blocking it. The start-up support center should be a creative space to share each other’s work, be stimulated, and create synergy. While general research institutes and office architecture focused on the unit space, this project tried to create the most creative communication by strengthening the sharing space of each unit space. Various sharing programs were reproduced by maximizing areas of sharing space rather than the area of unit space. Universal atrium that penetrate whole floors works as a main circulation and shared space. It connects the entire level then forms a complex communication space and combines nature and various programs and spaces. Three-dimensional single lobby space is placed at the ground level of the atrium, enabling various events. Creative discussion and communication are created through lectures, discussions, exhibitions, media, and videos. Weightless atrium space is composed of three-dimensional communication seminar space, exhibition space, city road, forest, rest space, play space, like a square in Winter Garden with 365 days of landscape. Various creative boxes were arranged on each floor facing the atrium. Through the open atrium space, discussions and passion are shared with each other. The atrium function as a living space that is opened and dailyized to users. Through the fact that it is floating, it is drawn into a dreamy and mythical world. It floats away from the earth. Cities and architecture are now not just tools to support the weight from the earth, but also agents of physical gravity. The ground emptied by floating is converted into activity, abundance, and connectivity. It is not just a functional space, but a kind of accelerator that accepts numerous urban elements. The start-up support center is a device that acquires these urban and social information, and it should be an architecture as a new gene that changes architecture and a new myth of imagination.