Ewha Womans University

Founded in 1886, the university welcomes some 22,000 women students. Its new building was won by the French practice in an international competition in 2003 and inaugurated on 29 April 2008.

It reads as a landscape more than a building, set in the middle of a university district. A campus valley mixes nature, sports grounds, event spaces and teaching buildings: a long strip closed at one end by a running track and surrounded by gardens of pear trees and topiary.

The valley is cut boldly into the ground and slides down a gentle slope. At its far end the slope becomes a great stair that can serve as an open air amphitheatre.

At the heart of the valley, a calm interior world opens behind tall glass walls. Classrooms and libraries, lecture halls and auditoriums, shops and circulation follow one another without ever lacking daylight, in a building that merges with the ground. The project was carried out with Baum Architects as local partner.