project /n/ a collaborative enterprise:
project /v/ to forecast or extend:

Project : Architecture is an award-winning design lab at Seoul National University established by John Hong in 2015. Practicing in both Korea and the U.S., the work of P:A incorporates core ideas of human and ecological networks into the design of institutional, residential, and commercial projects.

Belying its seemingly generic status, the word ‘project’ has two important definitions: As a noun it describes a collaborative enterprise, an umbrella under which shared goals converge into concrete realization.  As a verb, ‘project’ is an emboldened look into the future. With the urgent state of climate change and the environmental and social challenges that follow, the role of architecture will become even more central in creating resilient environments.

Our working methods are based on integrating research, technology, materials, and atmosphere into catalysts for positive change. By projecting precise questions we are able to converge diverse criteria and constituents around democratically shared objectives. And like the democratic process, we invite debate and discourse along the way as a key means to discover new and better paths.

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John Hong AIA, LEED AP is an architect and professor at Seoul National University. He has been teaching and conducting research in the Department of Architecture and Architectural Engineering since 2015 where he is the Director of the design lab, Project : Architecture.

His work bridges the scales of architecture and urbanism and converges the mediums of materials, drawings, theory, and computation.

His built projects have garnered many international awards including 17 American Institute of Architecture (AIA) awards, Architectural Record’s Design Vanguard, and a Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction Award.

His work has been exhibited at international venues including the Venice Biennale and published in major media such as Architectural Record, Metropolis Magazine, and The New Yorker.

As an architecture critic, his writing is featured in major media such as The Architectural Review, SPACE Magazine, as well as in book chapters in publications by Birkhäuser, Wiley, and L’arca.

Additional academic activities include curator roles for the City as Verb and Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism exhibitions.

Before joining SNU he served as Associate Professor in Practice at the Harvard GSD (2007-13) and held visiting professorships at major universities including the University of Pennsylvania and the City College of New York. He received his Master’s in Architecture with Distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor’s in Science in Architecture with Honors from the University of Virginia.