Rediscovering Koreanness

First Annual Design Korea Research Hub Symposium

The First Annual Design Korea Research Hub Symposium will take place on May 1–2, 2026, at the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT). The symposium is jointly organized by faculty from NYIT, the University at Buffalo (SUNY), Binghamton University (SUNY), and the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). The theme of this year’s symposium, Rediscovering Koreanness, investigates how Korea’s evolving cultural identity is articulated through design—across art, architecture, urban space, and everyday life.

Identity as a Process

We investigate how Korea’s evolving cultural identity is constructed across art, architecture, urban space, and everyday life. Approaching Koreanness as an open, expanding process, we invite scholars and practitioners from all fields to traverse boundaries and challenge the "architectures" of Koreanness.

Design Korea Research Hub is a collaborative platform founded at the Asia Research Institute, University at Buffalo, with funding from an Academy of Korean Studies Core University Grant. We are dedicated to the inquiry of Koreanness using the boundary of design around art, architecture, and city. We build an interdisciplinary network linking established and emerging voices, uniting theoretical discourse with aesthetic praxis.

5 Year Plan

Year 1 — Rediscovering Koreanness
Asking the re-reading of what Koreanness is; investigating identity, history, negotiation, and culture while broadening interdisciplinary themes and building a content network.

Year 2 — Ritual, Repair, and Relational Space: Koreanness Beyond Modern Fragmentation
Asking what Koreanness can do; framing Koreanness as a response to fragmented or “broken” communities; theorizing its application in terms of community value, ethics, and spatial practice.

Year 3 — Designing the Contemporary Korea
Experimentation, projection, and the development of alternative scenarios.

Year 4 — Technology, AI, Cultural Transmission, and Korea
Exploring future dimensions and the intersection of emerging technologies with cultural continuity and transformation.

Year 5 — Koreanness and the Restoration of Community: Exhibition + Publication
Public engagement through exhibition and dissemination of research outcomes.

Conveners

Dongsei Kim
Chair and Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture at the School of Architecture and Design, New York Institute of Technology

Kyunghee Pyun
Professor, Art History and Museum Professions; History of Art, Fashion Institute of Technology

Jin Young Song
Associate Professor, Department of Architecture, University at Buffalo

Man Joong Kim
PhD Candidate, Department of History, Binghamton University