Sustainability and the expected effects of office-to-residential conversion in historic downtown areas of South Korea

South Korea has industrialized and urbanized rapidly since the 1970s, and subsequently, the historic downtown areas of major cities have been hollowed out as the population and industry have become concentrated in urban centers. Based on the Urban Decline Indicators of Korea, in accordance with the Urban Revitalization Act of the South Korean government, a comparative analysis of the population changes, office vacancy rate, building aging rate, decrease in the number of industries and employees, and housing supply and demand in historic downtown areas and new urban areas of six major South Korean cities demonstrated that all six historic downtown areas have declined significantly. Currently, little research is available in South Korea on the expansion of urban living and the inflow of urban residents through office-to-residential building conversion. Therefore, this study explores the expansion of urban residences to revitalize these historic downtown areas. To this end, this study examines the feasibility of converting poorly functioning, vacant offices in historic downtown areas into residential spaces to present a sustainable strategy for their complexation. This study finds that office-to-residential building conversion is a sustainable way to recover urban space and grow the population and industry in historic downtown areas.