A PLAYSCAPE FOR THE TWEEN GENERATION: OOZOORO 1216

Jeonju Municipal Library has opened OOZOORO 1216, a library for preteen elementary schoolers to middle schoolers that will serve as a space to facilitate their independent activities. SPACE had an interview with Min W. Suh and Ji Jungwoo, of EUS+ Architects, who were part of the design team for this project.

There has been a growing trend in recent few years of work geared towards the tween generation. The late 2000s saw the growth of spaces dedicated to children, mainly in the form of museums and art galleries, culminating in 2017 with a movement to enhance environments for children under the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s Dream Class Project. Similar initiatives followed in the private sphere. Save the Children Korea sought to improve urban playgrounds by remodeling Jungnanggu’s Sangbong Children’s Park and Sehwa Children’s Park, while ChildFund Korea launched a programme to enable children’s free participation in its libraries and book cafés.