In-Formality?: Two Cases of Temporary Uses in Urban Regeneration of South Korea

Abstract

This paper aims to explore how we can utilize temporary and tactical urbanism in urban regeneration, focusing on its ability to redistribute power relations and foster inclusive processes. The research analysis compares two urban regeneration projects that were implemented under the concept of temporary urbanism in South Korea. The first case involves the transformation of a declining shipbuilding yard area into a cultural and small retail sector, while the second case is a regeneration project of an abandoned municipal cultural center. To identify detailed differences and similarities, this research tracked the project processes and changes in relationships through in-depth interviews and the analysis of related documents. The significance of these cases lies in illustrating two distinct paths of urban transition, from informal to formal and legitimate territory. This research suggests temporary urbanism as a means of introducing new ideas and functions into urban space, especially within the context of formal and informal relations.

1. Introduction

Since the government established a new urban regeneration act (2013, “Special act on promotion of and support for urban regeneration”) in 2013, the urban planning focus of South Korea has shifted from new development to the management and regeneration of existing urban spaces. There have been 560 urban regeneration projects conducted or in process until 2022 (From the website of Urban Regeneration Information System (www.city.go.kr, accessed on 17 September 2023)), with various regeneration tools and financial inputs implemented. However, overall assessments of the regeneration projects are not very positive. The fundamental objective of urban regeneration is to restore a decaying urban space to the activating state of its expected function while coordinating with the surrounding urban changes. Many studies have indicated that the regeneration projects of South Korea have failed to achieve durable revitalization, with one of the reasons being the rigidity of the formal planning process [1,2]. In addition, urban regeneration in South Korea follows a government-led and top-down approach, where local authorities apply for financial support from the central government. This fundamental reliance on central government’s financial backing creates impracticality and discontinuity of urban regeneration.

The objective of this paper is to examine the possibility of Temporary & Tactical (T&T) urbanism as a tool to connect informal and formal planning practices and to indicate building more flexible planning progress with fuzzy boundaries. As an answer to the question Roy [3] asks, “how planning modalities can produce the unplannable”, this paper explores the potential of T&T urbanism. For the T&T urbanism, there have been numerous experiments aimed to enhance the effectiveness and durability of plans by implementing temporary urbanism, which has an advantage in user participation. The short-term and temporary use of urban space, deviating from its initial and intended function, has gained significant interest and experimentation in academic and practical realms. Lyndon and Garcia [4] referred to it as “short-term, low-cost, and scalable interventions” and called it tactical urbanism. Other terms for this approach include temporary urbanism [5,6,7], guerrilla urbanism, pop-up urbanism [8], and DIY urbanism [9], which emphasizes the involvement of citizens in proposing and implementing projects. It is also referred to as urban agility, responding quickly to issues or problems, and urban informality, breaking free from traditional urban planning systems to experiment with new ideas. In this study, the term ‘T&T project or urbanism’ is used to encompass all relevant literature and cases.

This paper compares the actor relations and characteristics of two urban regeneration projects conducted by two opposing development processes: top-down and bottom-up. Two different urban transition cases from the informal field to the formal process in South Korea are examined, involving actors and their interactions to reveal the distributed power relations, which are key aspects of a flexible planning process. The first case involves the transformation of an abandoned shipbuilding yard in Young-do, Busan City—a typical urban fragment that lagged behind due to industrial structural changes. This transformation was fueled by a new functional input from the private sector. The second case examines a local government-led regeneration project for a public building in Gunsan City, which remained neglected for almost 10 years due to changes in demand. The paper compares these two cases, differing in planning directions (top-down and bottom-up) but sharing the commonality of implementing temporary and tactical urbanism projects. The particular focus of investigation lies in the procedural differences from informal events to formal within-system projects, and it seeks to identify the actors and their influences on the line of processes. The investigation aims to extract and propose significant clues for developing a new approach to regenerate decayed urban spaces.

Informality originated in economy field [10,11] initially and has been applied to various other disciplines, including urban studies. Recent works have seemed to reject the dualism of the concept that separates informality from formality and have instead viewed it as a generalized mode within urban process [3,12]. Researchers acknowledge squatter settlements as a type of urbanization phenomenon, rather than treating them as crises to cope with. Governments also use street vendor stalls as a temporary tool to revitalize urban spaces. This research also shares the same conceptualization of ‘urban informality’. Specifically, it is seen, as Roy [3] addressed, “as a state of exception from the formal order of urbanization” and questioned “how this state of exception can in turn be strategically used”. In this relation, this paper pursuits the possibility of T&T urbanism inviting informality into the formal urban regeneration system, without treating it as a subject to amalgamate.

This paper contributes to three aspects regarding T&T urbanism applied in urban regeneration process. First, it details the procedures and actors where T&T urbanism serves as a gateway for informal input into derelict urban spaces with new ideas. When T&T was given an interest initially, discussions mainly focused on the possibility of experimenting with new spatial uses in urban areas. Later, the scope broadened to include the ways in which informal activities enter the rigid and inflexible formal planning system [6,13]. Kim [14] argued that T&T urbanism could be expanded into a practice-based and iterative urban design process, serving as a bridge between the inside and outside of the planning system.

Second, concurrently with the first contribution, this paper attempts to reveal “the specific distribution of power between sets of stakeholders" [15]’ by providing a detailed description of actor relations in the cases. The dissolved power concentration of T&T uses is examined as an alternative to the formal conventional urban transformation process in South Korea. However, the empirically proven characteristics of T&T uses and their network flexibility could have significant implications for the field of urban planning.

Thirdly, the detailed description of the cases is another empirical evidence of the intermingling relationship between informality and formality in urban regeneration process. The analysis in this paper supports the idea that there is no dichotomy between formality and informality in urban situations [3,12]; rather, they are interconnected and interrelated. The analysis and result of this paper on informality also have two significances; one is about addressing the empirical evidence of an intermingling relationship between informal and formal division, and the other is about suggesting a new tool to deal with the recent rapid urban changes such as international immigration and subsequent conflicts of cultures, the growing interest in self-organization and emergence, and debates on the impact of globalization.

As a whole, this paper adopts a structure that discusses the role of T&T urbanism after examining in detail the progress and relationships between actors in two cases, as well as changes in the content of the projects. In Section 2 and Section 3, T&T urbanism is considered as a passageway for bringing informal ideas into the formal system, and the South Korean urban regeneration context is also reviewed with the perspective of T&T projects. After two case studies examining actor relations and processes, the discussion part (Section 7) discusses how T&T projects dissolve and distribute power relations, and how they make the process flexible and adaptable.

2. T&T Urbanism as a Bridge between Formality and Informality

Temporary and tactical urbanism has been examined for its potential as an alternative to modern urban issues. An exhibition on T&T urbanism held by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 2015, titled “Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities” defined it as “temporary, bottom-up interventions that aim to make cities more liveable and participatory”. The exhibition focused T&T urbanism in relation to the rapid population growth and the current megacity urbanization is primarily observed as a Third-World phenomenon. Of course, there are more concerns related with some urban situations, such as social interaction in public spaces [16,17] or application possibility in the pandemic period [18]. Many urbanists have explored what temporary urbanism can offer in response to these challenges. On the other hand, T&T urbanism has also been highlighted due to concerns about “commodification, monofunctionality and control” or the entrepreneurial governance of city planning that tends to homogenize space [19]. Additionally, in the context of urban regeneration facing financial instability amidst changing markets and economies, the ability of T&T to diversify development directions and to loosen the rigidity of planning system is continually considered as a pathway to realizing projects.

Another key debate topic around T&T urbanism is the planning process: the formal conventional and the citizen-led informal [20]. As a different, and quite often as an opposite, way of making and managing urban spaces, T&T urbanism has been illustrated with diverse cases. After Andres [15] identified three areas of T&T studies—cultural spaces and squats, temporary economy and cultural activities in abandoned areas, and potential contributions to long-lasting urban regeneration—she noted a gap among them, specifically related to involvement in “the specific distribution of power between sets of stakeholders within a collaborative process of transformation”. This is an alternative to the traditional urban process located outside of the “hegemonic visions of configuration of urban space” [19]. It could happen under weak urbanism or the context of weak planning [15] rather than the central-powered masterplanning characterized by strong and permanent visions, stability, linearity, and control. Within the loosened network of power relations, various actors, including those outside the formal planning system, can be involved. By considering temporary uses as a gateway to bring informal activities and distribute power, current planning could broaden its scope and become more flexible. This aligns with the works of Urban Catalyst [21] focusing on flexible urban space and the comparison of place-shaping and place-making by Healey [22].

In its innate way of working, T&T is also associated with informality, characterized by quickly executing guerrilla tactics outside the jurisdictional permitting process. Many introductory articles have commented on the case of Les Bouquinistes (the street bookstalls) in Paris [4], a group of unauthorized book vendors at the riverside that later turned into regular and prolonged activity. Although technically illegal, their actions gradually became regularized and institutionalized due to public opinion. The process of integrating informal activities into the urban space formally through the power of time and public opinion [23] is gaining considerable attention. Discussions on how to view this in conjunction with long-term planning, urban planning systems [6,24], or urban regeneration have gradually increased.

3. South Korean Context of Urban Regeneration

In 2013, the South Korean government enacted the Special Act on the Promotion of and Support for Urban Regeneration to shift the focus of urban space managing from physical aspects to non-physical social and economic aspects. Urban regeneration in Korea exhibits two distinctive characteristics when compared to that of other countries. Firstly, urban regeneration in Korea is a government-led and top-down plan. It is often planned and spearheaded by the government. The government formulates policies for urban regeneration based on the pre-set planning stages—from urban to block level—and provides diverse support for these plans (Figure 1). This approach enhances the efficiency and scale of urban regeneration projects, and this frequently manifests as large-scale projects. One of the debating issues related with the government-led regeneration process is about the private sector participation. Despite an emphasis on private sector involvement in recent times, central/local governments or the related institutions lead the process of urban regeneration. Private participation still remains limited, even in Europe and the United States, but the legislative system in Korea shows more government-centered structure.

The second distinctive feature of regeneration in Korea is its focus on residential environment improvement. This is based on Korea’s particular urban situation. The unbalanced population and inequitable regional growth have long been a serious national agenda, and most of the cities, except the Seoul metropolitan area, have undergone a serious decline in population and urban decay of their parts. Consequently, one of the key issues for the local cities in Korea is the revitalization of residential areas and reuse of derelict housings. The urban regeneration of derelict blocks and houses in the decreasing economic size needs alternative approach than the traditional one which was invented under the concept of urban growth. The solution for the decaying urban areas must be approached with low-risk and innovative ideas. Under the circumstance, in South Korea, T&T urbanism has been considered [25], exploring ways to activate streets through typology [26], utilizing vacant houses in local cities and their surroundings [27], and implementing urban regeneration projects [28].

4. Research Process

The basic approach of this case study was to gather as much information as possible to pursue every detail and to grasp contextual understanding of the cases. It started by collecting materials, such as formal press reports by the local government and media coverage dealing with the cases, to set up the chronicle details of each regeneration project. Social network services such as YouTube, where project teams actively shared their activities, were also examined (

Table 1. Archival data sources.

Type	Case	Contents
Document	Young-do	Research Paper, AURI, 2019, Service Networking Approach to Public Facilities Planning in Small-Medium Cities Research Paper, Korea Maritime Institute, 2017, Plan of Urban Regeneration Project in Yeongdo-gu and Jung-gu, Busan And 5 other documents
	Gunsan	‘A Sharing Event Held for the Regeneration Process of Gunsan Citizens’ Hall’, AURI Press Release Youtube (www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDEmwyktNhg (accessed on 17 January 2024) And 6 other documents
Journals	Young-do	Kukje News, 2019, Breath in Empty Houses… First Venture Investment of 2 billion Won in Urban Regeneration And 15 others
	Gunsan	Dong-A Daily News, 2017, Modern Buildings in Jeonbuk Rejuvenated as Cultural Tourism Resources (www.donga.com/news/all/20170323/83479285/1 (accessed on 19 December 2023)) Joongang Daily News, 2021, Can We Save Giants Without “Drugs”… First Experiment in Gunsan. And 12 others

). Parallel to this, four in-depth semi-structured interviews with key actors of regeneration were conducted (

Table 2. Interviewees and details.

Interviewee	Institution	Position	Role in the Project	Date
P1	RTBP Alliance	CEO	Project manager	Feb. 2022 (1.5 h)/ Feb. 2023 (1.5 h)
P2	AURI	Researcher	Project manager	Feb. 2022 (1.2 h)
P3	AURI	Researcher	Team member	Feb. 2022 (1.2 h)

). These key actors included the director and CEO, who could provide a comprehensive overview and contents of each project. The interviewee P2 and P3 were from a research institute, the Architecture and Urban Research Institute (AURI), which played a key role in leading the Gunsan project. Interviewee P1 was the CEO of a private company, the RTBP Alliance, which firstly started several regeneration projects in the abandoned shipbuilding yard area of Young-do in Busan. The purpose of the in-depth interviews was to obtain contextual and detailed experiences of the processes and to reproduce the process networks with actor relations, which can depict how the processes worked by the relations.

In the analytical process, the focus was on elucidating the conceptual scope and expanded application directions of the given topic, T&T urbanism. Therefore, the analysis stopped at categorization and proceeded in the direction of describing it richly as Ritchie et al. [29] mentioned rather than connecting patterns [30] between categories. The process involved the researcher continually engaging with the literature and interview data, progressively developing it to more abstract levels, deepening the understanding of the cases.

5. Young-Do Shipbuilding Yard Regeneration

5.1. Catalyst of Regeneration

After the dock of Young-do was firstly built in 1937, for almost 80 years, the docks and yards of the island worked as building yards for small- and middle-sized ships (Figure 2). In 2010 and after, the shipbuilding factories, which were already in the decline phase, started to close on a full scale, and the area became a derelict industrial urban part in Busan Metropolitan City. The first new input into the declined area was made in 2014 by a non-governmental organization seeking a way to utilize the remaining manpower and facilities. The organization, which would later become a profit-pursuing company named the RTBP Alliance, engaged in diverse activities to revitalize the area based in an environmentally friendly way. Early on, there was no financial support or properties, only some ideas; thus, it took a few guerrilla events without a formal permission for using the area. The founder of the company explained that the organization had to try anything first as an experiment and to see what happened next in terms of responses from the society.

“We were just looking for what could happen with the people from the diverse professions such as shipbuilding technicians, artists, and event planners…”.

“The team also tried to find solutions of urban problem … we thought the team could be a laboratory for the urban solution … We were sure that there will be an opportunity to make some profit”.

(Interviewee P1)

The early days events and activities were art exhibition and cultural performances in the abandoned warehouses with just the verbal permission of the owners without any formal declaration or permission process (Figure 3). These pop-up and temporary activities have gradually obtained responses from the young people and, further, from the whole Busan society.

After the initial years, with some investment from the private sector, the RTBP decided to take further steps and bought a warehouse beside water and named it as GGti Chunghak. The place has been used for various events ‘permanently’ with planning permission and has become a tool to generate small profits. This was crucial for the RTBP as it was an initial proof that their project could work as a regeneration process and be financially sustainable to maintain the company. The success of this project brought further investment, and there have been three more GGti buildings holding small museums, theatres, cafes, local related offices, and retail shops (

Table 3. Projects made by the RTBP Alliance.

Year	Building	Contents
2003–2014	Platform135 (Industrial area)	Re:born: furniture-making from waste resources Roofarm: small vegetable gardens on the rooftops using solar panels Reuse warehouse: performance, music concert, art exhibition etc. in the derelict warehouse
2018	GGti Chunghak (Industrial area)	Exhibition, performance, film making, advertisements, other events
2019	GGti Bongsan (Residential area)	Restaurant, book shop, resident union office, RTBP office, and residents running accommodation
~present	GGti Bongrae (Commercial area)	Small retail shops (café, pub, clothing store, restaurant etc.), offices, and others

). The early experimental events were proceeded in an informal area, but gradually, the regeneration projects in the shipbuilding yard moved into formal territory. The most recent, fourth GGti building was a totally new construction project under the formal planning permission system.

Following a series of successful projects between 2014 and 2018, formal area actors have become interested in the RTBP’s work, a response from the formal area. The chairperson of RTBP was invited as a private party director for the formal urban regeneration project of Bongsan town, contributing to a series of successful reuse projects of the area. This success has prompted central government, specifically the Ministry of Land Infrastructure & Transportation (MoLIT), to appoint ‘the revitalization district of industrial area’ in the shipbuilding factories area.

5.2. Discontinuity from Informal to Formal

The urban setting—various social and financial links—that once made the shipbuilding area flourish has dissolved, leaving only the physical appearances. An urban regeneration that requires financial investment and administrative support could not be processed without the setting. This means that society could not find a proper new function and failed to establish its physical and non-physical network. The RTBP Alliance wanted to find something for the area but also had same problem; thus, they had to be outside of the formal process, and the T&T project was introduced. Plainly, these “low-cost and scalable” [4] experiments with new perspectives made by private sector played a key role in the revitalization of the area and worked as a catalyst of bringing additional formal actions of central government bureau. The projects implemented by RTBP only totaled seven in the whole area, but their impact and implication were more significant. They demonstrated diverse possible uses of the area, which was the fundamental aim of the RTBP.

However, after the central government started to lead the regeneration, the ‘Pilot Project of revitalization in the decaying industrial district’ in 2019, covering a much broader area, the conventional habit of ‘masterplanning’ brought the recurrent rigidity and uninventiveness. Andres [15] describes ‘masterplanning’ and ‘weak planning’ to distinguish planning with many possibilities and inclusivity from planning of stability and rigidity. This is natural because, in the formal process, the initial key actor is not involved since it is not qualified to participate under the legal process. Until the formal GGTI projects that RTBP handled, the balance between the new innovative input and the financial output were managed. In Young-do, the initiated activities showed much possibility but the following formal actions did not.

6. Gunsan Municipal Cultural Centre Regeneration

In 2020, the Gunsan city council and AURI (Architecture and Urban Research Institute) concluded an MOU agreement to regenerate the Municipal Cultural Centre. The center was designed by a Korean architect Joongup Kim and built in 1989. It is a three-story building with a theatre of 858 seats (Figure 4). About 24 years later, it had become unused when the city built a new theatre, the Hall of Art Centre, in 2013. For Gunsan, a city sitting beside the Western Sea of South Korea with a population of 265,000 people, the Cultural Centre became a headache after it failed to be sold to a private company. In the meantime, the annual maintenance expenditure was about USD 40,000, and additional efforts to revitalize the facility had also failed. However, in 2019, the Cultural Centre was selected as one of the experimental targets of central government’s urban regeneration program which would entail about USD 6.7 million in subsidies for three consecutive years. This was possible mainly because the building was designed by a famous architect. The Gunsan city council wanted to make use of this good opportunity to solve the problem, followed by an agreement with AURI to bring forth a new idea. As a national research institute, AURI agreed to draw a plan for reusing the Municipal Cultural Centre particularly aiming to set up a public–private partnership (PPP). A press report (AURI, 2020, MOU agreement between Gunsan city and AURI, Press Report) from AURI explained the institute would provide field research and project management, and the city council would coordinate for information and administrational convenience.

A Formal Achievement through Informality

An undeniable fact is that the government’s Urban Regeneration Program, and its 3-year financial funding, enabled the unused facility to be on the regeneration process. This formal process held very informal aspect of events to find new possibility freely as much as possible. Interviewee P2, who was a project manager from AURI, said that the research team had to find new functions and activities other than the conventional method of sale which had already failed previously.

“It is one of the regeneration programs supported by the Ministry of Land Infrastructure and Transport (MoLIT) and the AURI’s role in the project was to seek new functions revitalizing the space and to find a new managing actor for the abandoned theatre for 9 years.”

(Interviewee P2)

After the basic statistical research and surveys to the residents, shop owners, and others, the task force team of AURI conducted two-stage pilot programs (

Table 4. Timetable.

Year	Stage		Contents	Participants
2020	1st Stage	3–7 Nov	The rooftop skateboard park	Citizen (25), research board and Staff (20), US army (skateboard relation, 5)
2021		27 Jan–17 Feb	The photograph competition (online)	-
	2nd Stage	19–23 May	New use for the outdoor space, ‘Invitation from a giant’	Research board (3), volunteer (10), managing team (36 teams)

). For the first task, they carried out three different T&T urbanism projects. The first attempt was a rooftop skateboard park (Figure 5). The idea was derived from the history that there had been many people who played skateboard in parking area in the center for several years, and it was the first result of the team’s effort to make a different approach. The participants in the process are also different by inviting the skateboarding groups in Gunsan, residents, public officers, and nearby shop owners. Even though the final function of the rooftop was not a skateboard park, but instead a space for physical activity for citizens, the idea of using rooftop space is an idea that could be considered as a benefit of the new approach.

The second experiment to find a new program was a 5-day event on the parking area. The research team prepared the event to see possibility of the outdoor space of the cultural center. The participant range was expanded to the local residents, shop owners, and the diverse local organizations, and the event venue was both inside and outside of the Cultural Centre. The findings from the second event are as follows: the new development direction of the center, ‘the everyday life art’, the parking area, and the small plaza were enough to hold art related activities, and they could establish a new network between the local non-governmental organizations. Based on the two events, the AURI team suggested four main guidelines in regenerating the cultural center.

However, even though the key actors were in the formal authorities, there were still difficulties to bring informal territory idea to the formal system. When preparing the two staged T&T events, the team had difficulties to convincing the idea. The first one was about budget spending. In the formal process the research team had to obtain a permission in advance, but the financial department did not understand the way of spending.

“It’s really difficult to spend the budget … It took a long time to convince the institution’s (AURI) administration and audit offices because they kept questioning why we needed to organize ‘a festival’ …”

(Interviewee P2)

Another challenge for the team was about understanding or empathy about T&T projects for the involved actors such as residents, shop owners, activists, and public officers. They held different concepts on the cultural center, and it was difficult to show them why the T&T projects were needed in the stage.

“When we reported the work to the city decision-makers, they questioned back … what exactly is tactical urbanism? … The terminology itself is not easy to explain, and it was quite challenging to convincingly explain why it is necessary. … Even when engaging with residents, it was difficult to explain the purpose without providing concrete reasons, so we just told them about organizing local events and encouraging participation without specifying the underlying objectives.”

(Interviewee P3)

7. Discussion and Conclusions

7.1. Distributed Powers between Actors; Weak Planning

One of the key aspects examined in this research is the role of T&T projects as a power distribution passage in the process and as a hub node between the actors involved. Making process as a network which continually negotiates and reshapes relationships between actors is a key characteristic of fluid entity [31,32], and the precariousness of relationships is a division line between ‘weak planning’ and ‘masterplanning’ [15]. This paper argues, based on the cases, that T&T projects played a key role to bring more actors into the process network, and this openness made the network more power-distributed and the regeneration more inclusive. The two cases commonly showed co-evolution based on the local knowledge of actors, which was organized and delivered by the T&T projects.

In the Young-do case, the initial innovative idea of reusing the derelict industrial area was made outside the formal planning process under the loosened administrative network and the openness of experiment ideas. Along with the key actor, RTBP Alliance, many experts, such as engineers, designers, activists, film makers, and others, were involved in the events. These diverse attempts are difficult to make under the formal planning process, which need to be pre-planned with intensive financial input. Various initiatives characterized as “temporary, low-risk, and short-term” [4] involve dividing the responsibilities of administrative authorities in advance and gradually evolving them into substantial and specific redevelopment plans through proactive proposals. This imparts a highly flexible nature to the overall development of the area and ensures adaptability to changes in the surrounding environment.

Their successful series of projects, such as cultural events in unused warehouses and the mixed-use rebuilding, have stimulated government authorities and shown new possibilities. An interesting point is the period of time after the formal actors of MoLIT and LH Corporation designated the shipbuilding yard as a ‘revitalizing industrial district’, a full formal process of regeneration. They tried to draw ‘a masterplan’ for the district as a conventional habit of development, and the contents of the future plan lost the initial flexible, innovative, and vitalizing aspect. This is because the formal process worked as a barrier, cutting out the other actors, which were mostly private. The formal process based on the legal act limits the boundary of actors and the planning network cannot draw in or drag out actors flexibly by changing circumstances.

In the Gunsan regeneration case, the formal actors, the city council and AURI, have a key authorization to proceed, and they actively tried to bring the informal actors—the local skateboard club, the shop owners, and residents nearby—to find a suitable functions for the facility and a management method. In this process, the diverse T&T projects worked as a tool to connect formal and informal actors while they also changed some of actors’ opinions from negative to positive. The network was a flexible process of decision making. Even though the contents of experimental temporary events were not directly applied in the Gunsan Municipal Cultural Centre, they were valuable processes in pursuing the proper programs for the site, as well as a useful tool to call attention from the residents/shop-owners and to involve them in the process. The rooftop skateboard park and the parklet festival have changed nearby shop owners’ attitudes to the regeneration process. Previously, many shop owners and residents wanted just a parking area after demolishing the building, but later, they became actors who proposed diverse ideas for regeneration.

There was no proper passage to connect diverse actors such as shop owners and residents before the open events of T&T, and it made the unempowered actors closely connected to the process. Throughout this flexible and open process, the derelict building and space became an interesting place with full of relationships with many stakeholders. It has become a fun place. The Gunsan City Council realized that the success of the regeneration was hinged on the way of intermingling diverse actor relations rather than proceeding only by an authority management.

As mentioned earlier in this paper, this research attempts to obtain a clue from the cases for the question Roy [3] asked, “how this state of exception can in turn be strategically used by planners”. Even though they have a common aspect of utilizing T&T projects, the two cases showed different trajectories when making a co-evolution from the local actor relations to the formal regeneration process. The difference was caused mainly by what is a key actor, or a network builder, to lead the process. In the Gunsan case, it did not have a risk that the Young-do case innately possessed.

“It wasn’t a research project. The legal terminology has now changed but at that time, there was a concept of government agency outsourcing. … We received delegated authority and responsibilities from municipal officials at the city hall, allowing us to carry out administrative processes on their behalf.”

(Interviewee P3)

The key players who introduced and conducted the T&T project were formal actors (Gunsan City Council and AURI) with the legal authority, and the idea produced could be immediately applied into the site without any major alterations. These two directions provide valuable insights as two opposite directions with many in-between urban situations which need different planning and execution approaches. In the situation where upfront capital investment and public planning are not feasible, diverse and unconstrained urban experiments are necessary. This implies an incremental, networked, and collaborative planning process rather than a complete overhaul structure. Also, where formal authority has a will and a financial foundation, a T&T project can be a good tool to find proper functions. The direction for redevelopment was found through T&T projects before adopting such business models.

7.2. Conclusions

In conclusion, the fundamental advantages of T&T urbanism projects can be identified. The cases showed that T&T projects have the ability to break down the boundaries between formal and informal areas. T&T projects strip away pre-conceived functions imposed by designers and public institutions, allowing for a more open interaction with human activities by viewing the subject as a physical entity itself. This makes the space or building more inclusive and breaks down the boundaries between informality and formality, connecting them fundamentally. Furthermore, experiments conducted outside of the permitting system, along with incorporated activities, can transition into the formal process with innovative informal ideas that could resist the decline of the city. This characteristic of T&T projects and urbanism can serve as a complement to the rigidity of formal planning processes.

The two cases in South Korea showed a new possibility for playing a key role in the formal planning system, leveraging the advantages of informal activities to bring flexibility and adaptability to urban spaces. Despite some skepticism regarding the benefits of temporary and tactical uses [33], these cases could serve as solid evidence that T&T can assume a new role in the conventional urban system. Moving forward, more case studies encompassing various urban situations in different societies need to be explored. Additionally, detailed actor relations within diverse cases and their dynamics also require investigation.