Second Place Winner
Yeo Vendor Shelter
Design by
Minji Lee
A highly refined and context-sensitive proposal that addresses real operational issues through a modular folding system, integrated sanitation, customizable interiors, and clear spatial organization, successfully balancing vendor needs with the public character of Yeouido Park.
Minji Lee
Minji Lee is an Interior Architecture student at Hongik University, currently on a leave of absence to pursue independent design practice. Her work is driven by a sustained interest in architectural problem-solving, not as a stylistic pursuit, but as a discipline for engaging the phenomenological question of how space shapes human experience and perception. She approaches architecture as a medium capable of carrying meaning across cultural and linguistic borders, and is particularly engaged with the question of what architecture will need to offer future generations as global conditions continue to shift.
Celebrating Creativity & Vision
Winner’s Spotlight: An Exclusive Interview
Discover the story behind the victory — from concept to creation.
Concept & Interpretation
The Street Vendor Shelter 2026 competition challenged participants to rethink the street vendor shelter as a dignified, adaptable, and empowering urban intervention. What was the central idea behind your proposal, and how did you interpret the competition theme through your architectural vision?
The central idea was about solving the problem chain for the merchants who use the vendor shelters. At first glance, the design is there to solve sanitary or waste problems and to preserve park scenery. But these superficial problems lead to problems for limited spaces being assigned for merchants by the park management, which also creates issues of seating arrangement between merchants. This eventually leads merchants to prefer cheap, easy-to-prepare, unsanitary vendor booths so they can secure their selling spot easily. This then goes on to create waste and scenery problems, and the loop is created. The main purpose of the design was to break this chain.
Designing for Livelihood
Street vendors rely on their workspaces not only for income but also for visibility, safety, and daily functionality. How does your design support their livelihoods while improving their everyday working experience and fostering a sense of dignity?
The entire interior configuration relies on a single square panel system. Serving as the primary floor and ceiling elements, these panels can be inserted into side aluminum tracks to transform into built-in furniture. Supplemented by rectangular panels, the same system can form shelving, chairs, and tables.
The unit also designates space for a trash bin and a compact sink, featuring integrated top and bottom openings to facilitate rainwater drainage and sink plumbing. While traditional folding modules focus solely on exterior functionality, this system leverages its outer structural elements to power the interior, operating the architecture, interior layout, and furniture under one unified design framework. Consequently, vendors receive all essential functional amenities natively integrated within the shelter.
Functionality & User Experience
Street vendor shelters must respond to a wide range of practical needs. How did you organize the shelter to accommodate vending activities, customer interaction, storage, accessibility, flexibility, and ease of use throughout the day?
In addition to space-saving interior storage, the structure integrates multiple user-centric features for street vendors. A dedicated side panel serves as a foldable door, while the front aperture transforms into a solid counter surface by folding the front-side panel and raising an extension plate.
The top signage section operates on the same folding logic, allowing vendors to easily display signage or hang promotional banners. Thanks to this fully foldable architecture, vendors can quickly dismantle and secure their booths at the end of the day. Crucially, the front opening can be folded back into a secure, wall-like barrier, preventing theft and protecting personal belongings inside.
Urban Integration & Public Realm
Street vendors play an important role in activating public spaces. How does your proposal integrate with its urban context while balancing pedestrian movement, public accessibility, and the broader streetscape?
By default, these modules can be arranged in either grid or linear configurations. Removing the side aluminum panels creates connecting passages between adjacent modules, allowing them to expand seamlessly. When organized in a grid, the modules clearly delineate individual vendor territories while introducing intentional voids between units, maintaining a clean and uncluttered spatial environment.
Simply keeping the interstitial spaces between stalls clean significantly reduces spatial complexity. Often, overflowing merchandise or waste from stalls spills into pathways, creating visual clutter and obstructing pedestrian flow; clear spatial boundaries mitigate this issue and help keep walkways clear. Typical street-food districts often suffer from chaotic, irregular layouts formed by organic vendor encroachment. By establishing a systematic framework through modular organization, the design delivers a far more pleasant and navigable experience for both tourists and visitors.
Innovation & Architectural Expression
The competition encouraged participants to move beyond conventional kiosk or stall designs. What aspects of your proposal do you consider the most innovative, and how do they redefine the role of street vendor shelters within contemporary cities?
Conventional commercial kiosks exist solely to facilitate basic transactional activities. However, viewing the system through the lens of a vendor's daily routine reveals four distinct phases: setting up and designating space in the morning, preparing operations and conducting trade, taking rest within the booth, and packing up to return home. Vendors require a shelter that seamlessly accommodates all four stages.
For vendors who spend the majority of their day in Yeouido Park, the sense of leisure that Yeouido inherently represents should also permeate their daily lives. Designing a shelter that supports every stage of their workflow introduces a whole new paradigm for urban street vendor infrastructure.
Sustainability & Buildability
Sustainability and affordability were central objectives of the competition. How did you address material selection, environmental performance, modularity, construction methods, maintenance, and long-term adaptability to create a practical and resilient solution?
Most of the foldable shelters fold in one direction. With this new folding structure inspired by an engineering spring, the module folds in two directions, enabling 2-dimensional shrinkage. To facilitate building the module, the sides of the model are made of aluminium panels. Featuring detachable top/bottom folding panels and aluminum side plates, the module is engineered for effortless assembly. The aluminum panels handle primary structural loads, enabling users to remove select panels for custom configurations without compromising stability. This allows a single module to yield multiple functional vendor booth typologies.
Crucially, the floor and ceiling panels are identical to the interior panels that slot into the aluminum frame to form furniture. By constructing the entire system using only three core components, this design dramatically streamlines manufacturing, inventory, and overall buildability.
Social Impact & Inclusivity
Beyond providing physical shelter, street vendor infrastructure can strengthen local economies and promote social inclusion. How does your design contribute to creating safer, more inclusive, and economically empowering public spaces for vendors and their communities?
As previously mentioned, this project aims to break the vicious cycle facing informal vendors at Yeouido Hangang Park—where unregulated territory capture and pollution further impede their legal formalization. On-site vendor interviews highlighted two core struggles: space disputes and secure storage. The Yeoui Vendor Shelter solves both: its modular footprint establishes explicit boundary lines while providing integrated interior storage. It also offers essential sun shading for vendors positioned on open stone pavements and lawns who are otherwise exposed to intense summer heat.
Special attention was given to the roof design. To prevent the cluttered aesthetic typical of dense vendor markets, we implemented a parametric roof geometry. As individual modules join, they form a cohesive, flowing visual rhythm. Moreover, using transparent acrylic for the roof transforms the unit into an illuminated lantern at night, directing light upward and positively contributing to the park's nocturnal cityscape.
The Future of Informal Urban Infrastructure
As cities continue to evolve, what role do you believe architecture and urban design should play in supporting informal economies? How do you envision future street vendor infrastructure contributing to more equitable, resilient, and vibrant urban environments?
Urban infrastructure directly impacts how citizens navigate daily life, yet public projects often settle for superficial fixes. When shaping public infrastructure, architects must actively uncover hidden, tacit issues rather than reacting to surface symptoms.
Looking at Yeouido’s street vendors through a narrow lens might frame the challenge as a simple waste problem or internal community friction. That approach leads only to installing extra trash cans and restricting vendor space—a lose-lose scenario for visitors looking for leisure, local residents driving the economy, vendors making a living, and public administrators alike. Architecture is at its most powerful when it unlocks the fundamental core of a problem, and this project served as a profound testament to that capability.
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