An agent-based renovation of the Korean Broadcasting System headquarters, transforming a centralized broadcasting institution into a decentralized framework for collaborative media production.
Academic architecture project / SNU / Seoul / 2022 / Enrique Sanz-Gadea
KBS Renovation responds to the obsolescence of traditional mass-media structures by proposing a new system for producing and exchanging information. Rather than organizing the headquarters around a single directional flow, the project introduces a distributed environment in which different forms of media can be developed collaboratively.
The design is generated through a computational simulation composed of 28 autonomous programmatic agents. Each agent represents a specific activity within KBS and pursues its own spatial goals, dependencies and relationships. Their cooperation and conflict become the forces that continuously reorganize the building.
The simulation begins with the existing headquarters and remains constrained by its structural and formal qualities. Space is treated as a shared resource whose value differs for every agent. Hierarchy and entropy operate as design parameters, balancing moments of instability and diversity with the order required for the system to remain viable.
The resulting architecture is not a fixed masterplan but a record of this iterative process. Existing and new programs redistribute themselves across the building while preserving traces of their interactions, blurring the boundary between design, occupation and construction. The headquarters becomes an adaptive media infrastructure capable of responding to a changing communication landscape.