Metropolis Digital Optimism Talks logo

Join us every second Tuesday of the month for a dose of optimism with thought-provoking guests who are revolutionizing their fields. Innovators will lead virtual workshops for an hour of discovery, inspiration, and community. Led by editor in chief, Avinash Rajagopal, these workshops will be guided by our audience, where questions are not only welcome but encouraged.

Register Now
natural habitat cold spring home exterior

Metropolis Editors, Natural Habitat, sustainability, sustainable architecture

METROPOLIS Introduces Natural Habitat, a Sustainable Homes Video Series

The series debuts with a tour of a tranquil upstate New York retreat designed with Passive House principles.

Read more
New Mexico Strata Research center designed by Yunin Jeung
NEW MEXICO STRATA RESEARCH CENTER
Jeung’s design for a geological museum built into an abandoned mine allows visitors to explore the earth’s layers firsthand. COURTESY YUNIN JEUNG

April 14, 2023

YunIn Jeung Fuses Formal Expression and Social Purpose

A member of the 2023 Metropolis Future100, Jeung draws on his multicultural upbringing to tell a story through architecture.

By: Sam Lubell

The work of Louisiana Tech University undergraduate YunIn Jeung showcases a rare combination of unrestrained creative exploration and disciplined technical skill, stemming from his equal passions for scientific and imaginative thinking. Jeung first started studying to be a doctor, like his father, but he found the medical world creatively stifling. Architecture has nurtured both sides of his personality. 

a 3D-printed model of the Songdo National Writing Museum
SONGDO NATIONAL WRITING MUSEUM
To build a 3D-printed scale model of the museum, Jeung divided the building’s galleries and functional spaces into seven volumes that interlock with one another, fitting together like a puzzle. COURTESY YUNIN JEUNG

YunIn Jeung’s Global Upbringing Yields Out-of-the-Box Insights

Armed with his systematic but innovative approach, Jeung pursues outside-the-box projects that also happen to make good sense. Another gift is an ability to open his mind to new creative opportunities and points of view, which comes largely from a youth growing up all over the world, starting outside Busan, South Korea, and continuing to Australia, the U.K., Ghana, and Niger. 

“I feel like living in different cultures and meeting different people allowed me to be a more flexible thinker and respond to a new environment more quickly,” he notes. 

  • a rendering of YunIn Jeung's Songdo Writing Museum
    Sonqdo Writing Museum: Render View from across the water COURTESY YUNIN JEUNG
  • a community college atrium space
    Colony Park Community College: Atrium Space COURTESY YUNIN JEUNG
  • a rendering of the exterior of a building
    Fezoli Piano Studio: Main Render of Fezoli, part of Archive COURTESY YUNIN JEUNG

Jeung’s design for the New Mexico Strata Research Center on top of an abandoned mine unlocks the potential of the museum not just to tell the story of the site’s geological formations but to introduce views into those formations themselves. For the Songdo National Writing Museum, exhibiting the development of Korean writing from ancient forms to the present day, jagged forms are inspired by the shared aspects of various types of letters, while the circulation expresses stylistic changes as you move horizontally through the building and changes over time as you move up through a dramatic central atrium. 

Such projects also help tell a story and teach lessons through architecture, fulfilling another personal goal: to have social impact. It’s an ambition he developed early, appreciating his father’s efforts to heal patients in need around the world. “Buildings are for people. They must impact people in very profound ways,” says Jeung. 

Would you like to comment on this article? Send your thoughts to: [email protected]

Latest