Kengo Kuma and MAD among architects creating Walls of Public Life at Seoul Biennale of Architecture

Architecture studios Kengo Kuma and Associates, MAD and Kéré Architecture and designer Stella McCartney are among 24 designers chosen by Thomas Heatherwick to create walls for the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism.

Each studio will create a piece of wall measuring 2.4 by 4.8 metres for the Walls of Public Life installation, which will stand alongside a separate 90-metre long twisted wall decorated with text and images.

The finalised 24 walls will be shown at Songhyeon Green Plaza in Seoul and include a wall by South Korean studio Nameless made from stone and broken brick, Diébédo Francis Kéré's communal structure made from Korean pine and a wall that's being constructed live by Burkina Faso village artisans.

"These amazing Walls of Public Life are a giant, joyful clue that the outsides of everyday buildings could be so much better," said Heatherwick, who is the general director of this year's Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism.

"I want the public to take them as a real challenge to the bland, soulless surfaces of buildings that normally get imposed on us all," he continued.

"And I want developers to see the huge variety of walls and think, why couldn't some of that apply to a building I am working on? Why stick with what we've got, when something like this could transform our experience of living in cities?"

Other materials used for the walls, which aim to evoke an emotional response from passers by, will include mushroom and resin. The walls will also play with colour and texture.

"I imagined walls not as barriers but as bridges," Kéré said. "One wall will be crafted from Korean pine, a material rich in local history and symbolism."

"The other will draw from the building traditions of Tiébélé, interpreted through Korean clay," he added. "Together, these two walls speak to a shared human story, reminding us that architecture is rooted in connection and community."

Songhyeon Green Plaza park, which will form the geographic centre of the biennale, will also feature a 90-metre-long and four-storey-high installation called the Humanise Wall.

This was "designed to provoke a public conversation about the ways that buildings make us feel," according to the biennale.

"The Walls of Public Life show how architecture can touch people's emotions and change the face of a city," said Chang-su Lim, director general of the future urban space planning bureau of the Seoul Metropolitan Government.

"The Seoul Metropolitan Government will continue to support the development of warm and emotionally resonant public architecture that is open and inclusive to all."

The architecture teams that have been commissioned to design a part of the Wall of Life are A Co Lab, Anupama Kundoo Architects, Bureau de Change, Hawkins\Brown, Kengo Kuma & Associates, Kéré Architecture, MAD Architects, Moreless Architects, Nameless Architecture, Ronald Rael, SOSU Architects, Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu and YOAP Architects.

Designers Anomalia, Ozwald Boateng, Stella McCartney and Stephen Webster will also create walls, as will artists Bapossan Alempoua & Asseta Idogo and Yinka Shonibare, engineering firm Arup, manufacturers Hankuk Carbon and Hyundai Motor Company, chef Edward Lee and the Korean Furniture Museum.

Heatherwick recently told Dezeen "the tone in architecture is that the public is ignorant" in an interview about his Humanise campaign.

Renders are courtesy of Heatherwick Studio.

Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism takes place from 26 September to 18 November 2025 in Seoul, South Korea. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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