Seoul National University’s former College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Building to be transformed into space for One-Person Creators

Createdd 2019-02-15 Hit 372

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The Forest Science Hall, one of the former buildings of Seoul National University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, will be transformed into a space for One-Person Creators.

Gyeonggi Province announced on January 30 that it has earmarked KRW 6 billion for the project this year. It plans to begin renovation work as soon as planning and design has been completed (as early as July 2019) so as to open the Maker Space in March next year.

A “maker” refers to a one-person creator who realizes his/her ideas using digital devices and various other tools. The Maker Space will serve as a space in which makers can create and develop products and services based on their ideas while also offering various equipment to help during the manufacturing process.

The Forest Science Hall is one of the old buildings of Seoul National University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences that is located in Seodun-dong, Gwonseon-gu, Suwon City. This 3-story building occupies a total area of 3,050 m2. It will be renovated into a space with manufacturing and testing facilities as well as rooms for collaboration, trials, and product exhibitions, and equipped with advanced equipment such as 3D printers, laser cutting machines, and CNC along with machines for woodworking and metal processing. The space will be open to all residents of Gyeonggi Province.

Gyeonggi Province has already transformed the former site of Seoul National University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences into the Sangsang Campus, a cultural space complex open to all residents. To date, the province has remodeled seven of the twenty-two buildings of the former college into youth entrepreneurship and employment support spaces as well as cultural spaces for provincial residents. These facilities have become leading cultural spaces of Gyeonggi Province, with the total number of visitors amounting to 430 thousand since opening in June 2016.

Oh Who-seok, Director General of Gyeonggi Province’s Culture, Sports & Tourism Bureau, said, “We have been planning to renovate the Forest Science Hall into a Maker Space for a while now. However, because the building remained empty, there have been some misunderstandings about its use. We seek to create a Maker Space here that will play an essential role in spreading maker culture throughout Gyeonggi Province in response to the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”