Alternative Nature

This is the first English publication of PARKKIM, Seoul and Boston based landscape architectural practice founded in 2004. When their first book publication ever "Alternative Nature (Mediabus, Seoul: 2015)" was mainly in Korean and sans images, this title invites the global audience to an in- depth discussion on the practice, backed by photos, drawings, and essays. This book is something beyond a normative architectural monograph that just describes projects, but something that invites readers to a new way of thinking about landscape architecture, nature, and the built environmen through the practice of PARKKIM. The selective works of PARKKIM, both built and unbuilt, are featured along with the photos, drawings, and narratives. A critical and introductory essay by Kim and Park invites the reader to join to ponder alternative ways of making the experience and function of nature. A few essays by design professionals and cultural critics expand the discourse by putting PARKKIM's practice within the contemporary context. Upon returning to the United States to teach at Harvard GSD, Yoonjin and Jungyoon detected the lack of discourse on contemporary Asian landscape practice in architecture publishing and beyond, even though the size of the Asian market and the quality of built works there have escalated to a previously unfathomable degree in recent decades. Additionally, Korean culture has recently made an unignorable impact across continents, races, and ages, mostly through K-pop and K-movie, which could facilitate increased interest in Korean architecture.