YG Entertainment moves into new recording studios & offices

The South Korean music scene, otherwise known as K-Pop, is currently making strides in the global music industry. In 2017, YG Entertainment, the producers of K-Pop, invited UNStudio to design their brand new headquarters in Seoul. The new building houses office spaces, meeting rooms and recording studios, all of which are organised to take advantage of the location and intended to provide YG Entertainment’s employees with an uplifting and inspiring work environment.

To one side, the site abuts a low-density housing area, while on the other, it faces a dense network of highways and bridges and overlooks a large green park. This positioning informs the building orientation and internal organisation, while also serving to open up views towards the river from the interior workplaces. The new HQ is also situated directly next to the well-known existing YG Building, the interior of which celebrates a ‘black in black’ concept. The new HQ interior takes the opposite approach, introducing a brightly lit space with a range of white tones and geometric lines.

The seven office levels are oriented towards the view over the park, while the meeting and collaboration spaces on the first four floors face an interior atrium, which serves as a collective space in the heart of the building.  The atrium façade is punctuated by exposed capsule-like meeting rooms that can serve as either ‘working zones’ or ‘resting zones’. At ground level, a hidden garden functions as a ‘living room’ to welcome visitors. 

The protective shell of the new HQ building has the appearance of an ‘urban speaker’, designed to be more reminiscent of a product than a building. During the day, the ‘urban speaker’ is designed to provide a comfortable working environment for its employees, whilst at night it glows and becomes an identifiable part of the city’s skyline. The illumination concept of the various interior zones reveals a glimpse of various layers within the building, accentuating the quality of performance inherent to the entertainment and music industry. 

Lucy Nordberg
Tenderstream Head of Research

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