Muzamil Mutalib

advisor

City University Malaysia

Malaysia

Lecturer specializing in Interior Design and Architecture, with a strong passion for blending… more

I am thrilled to commend the STYEL HUB_Office for Fashion for its bold and poetic architectural narrative one that fuses urban connectivity, fashion sensibility, and spatial dramaturgy into an iconic intervention in the heart of Sejong City. This is not merely a commercial office, it is a civic gesture, a sculptural beacon, and an experiential runway that redefines the typology of fashion headquarters in the urban realm. The architectural language is visionary yet grounded. The dual-tower composition, joined at the upper levels by dynamic skybridges, creates a powerful visual silhouette that reads as both monumental and fluid. The choice of textures and materials particularly the warm, curved timber facade at the ground level brilliantly contrasts the crisp geometries of the towers, generating a tactile, human-scale threshold that invites entry and engagement. This lower level is not just a lobby it is a spatial theater where the boundaries between street, architecture and fashion dissolve. The looped circulation strategy and the spatial choreography around the exhibition areas speak to an advanced understanding of how people move, explore and encounter creative content.

What is especially compelling is how the design transforms a site with both great potential and a challenge its partial disconnection from the broader urban fabric into a magnetic node of activity. Through its integration of underground and ground level circulation, the project resolves the site’s urban fragmentation by drawing in flows from the plaza and surrounding buildings, effectively stitching together the urban grain with architectural intent. This act of “urban mending” through design is not only strategic but socially resonant, creating new axes of connection and community interaction. The dual nature of the exhibition spaces one open and skylit the other enclosed and contemplative introduces a refined spatial duality that mirrors the multifaceted nature of fashion itself. Light, material and program are all orchestrated to create a sensory journey from public engagement to intimate reflection. This layered programming allows the architecture to serve both as a spectacle and a sanctuary a home for experimentation, branding and legacy building.

Moreover, the tower’s structural expressiveness and verticality suggest ambition, clarity and confidence qualities essential to a discipline like fashion which thrives on identity and transformation. The visual motifs referencing loops and circles subtly reinforce the ideas of continuity, evolution and cyclical creativity. These symbolic undercurrents paired with strong urban strategy and material tactility, elevate the project beyond functionalism into the realm of architectural storytelling. STYEL HUB_ Office for Fashion exemplifies how architecture can embody brand ethos, activate public space and sculpt new forms of civic and creative experience. It is a design that respects its context while projecting a bold vision for the future of urban workspaces and as such, it stands out as a masterful, evocative and culturally attuned contribution to the competition.