IAUOA interviews Professor Hanseok Lee on architecture and living with water

IAUOA presents a written interview with Professor Hanseok Lee, emeritus professor at Korea Maritime and Ocean University and an architect. Conducted by Park Hoon, the interview explores ocean architecture, waterfront regeneration, marine habitation, and international academic collaboration.

Professor Lee places human life at the centre of ocean architecture, encompassing spaces on water, underwater, and along the waterfront. Water affinity connects spatial quality, ecological understanding, and engineering capability.

On waterfront regeneration, he stresses public welfare and systematic, bottom-up resident participation. His research in Busan explores the relationship between port functions, ecological spaces, industrial heritage, and civic life.

He identifies coastal disaster safety as an urgent research concern and advocates combining technical design, institutional frameworks, and local marine conditions with interdisciplinary collaboration.

He proposes multidisciplinary research on coastal urban disaster safety as a possible priority for IAUOA. These are the interviewee's recommendations, not an announcement of an approved or launched programme.

For younger researchers, he advocates combining design and engineering knowledge with an understanding of local ecology and the relationship between people and water.