The Dokdo Museum and Park is designed to memorialize the events of Dokdo Island and its place in South Korean history. The aesthetic and function of the landscape and architecture are closely integrated and innovatively designed to evoke a strong yet contemporary take on local island and traditional Korean culture expressed in building forms and nature, to materials and details.

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Through a network of paths, outdoor performance spaces and pavillions, the museum and park is seemlessly integrated with a series of historically important spaces including Misso Temple, an ancient Arts and Culture Village, and Mount Yukhyang on which resides a series of temples and shrines. A massive, but abandoned, residential building is demolished and reusable materials like concrete beams and coluns, bricks and roof tiles are salvaged and reused.

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The Peninsula Plaza is a focal point for activity and play for the park. An engraving of the Korean peninsula is submerged in water in the summer, and revealed in the winter. The Peninsula Plaza is further accentuated by a series of circular nature fields that inspire a variety of individual and group activities like talking, lecturing, lounging, sleeping, eating, looking, playing, exercising, bringing people closer to nature. 

The Dokdo Museum consists of 3 Hanoks or Houses - a Tourist Information House, a Museum House and a Memorial House. Exhibition spaces that require temperature control and no natural light are located below grade; while public facing program like lobbies, restaurants, cafes, that require natural light are located above grade.

Like a traditional Hanok, the 3 Houses and parking is rotated to face the mountain. Each House is assigned with a different Hanok profile - courtyard, L and bar shape, recalling Hanoks found in the northern, central and southern regions of South Korea. The walls consist of a cast in place reinforced concrete structure and a recycled/reused brick, block and roof tile exterior. The heights of the Houses step. Their curved cantilevered roof consists of Photovoltaic shingles and a multi-tiered wood slat soffit mounted to a lightweight steel structure. 

The Houses’ simplicity, orientation, sailing roof, and raw materials pay a striking contemporary homage to an ancient Korean house typology.