Hagwon+ aims to reimagine and reinspire the South Korean educational system.

Students today are typically locked into a single-track mindset, using hagwons as a tool to enter an ever-more-competitive university system.

This approach limits students' career aspirations, and forces many into rigorous cycles of stress and anxiety.

To encourage students to follow a more diverse set of educational and professional pathways, Hagwon+ merges vocational and academic training into one intertwined volume.


Active and negative space coexist to form modules of learning and socialization, pushing students to learn about new opportunities and options for their future endeavours.


These modules take on different lives at day and by night, allowing spaces to adapt, and motivating students of all ages and availabilities to expand their skillset.

A variety of classrooms exist in the space. To encourage interest across disciplines, modules span multiple levels, intersecting the building's vertical circulation wherever possible.


An individual studying english may pass a robotics lab on their way to meet a friend, introducing an interest in a subject they hadn't considered before. Another student may opt to learn carpentry after their math and science classes, made possible by these transformative spaces on display.


By encouraging socialization in these in-between moments, students' opportunities are intentionally broadened while at rest, reducing the stress associated with making decisions about the future.

Bringing this ideology to the facade, the building's external cladding encourages points of visibility to highlight the activities within.


Using transparency as advertisement, Hagwon+ defies the trend of signage en masse, as typical of other hagwons in Korea.


A system of metal pipes are suspended along every external face of the modules, thinning out until almost invisible at specific moments of interest.


Acting as an icon in the neighborhood, the subtle yet highly-intentional facade of Hagwon+ reveals the power and intrigue of activity itself.

View more images in the Gallery.