Participants pose at the MOU signing ceremony for the Aramco-Chung Young-sun Ulsan Garden project, which will create a public garden representing Korea at Taehwa River National Garden. From left: Khalid A. Radi, CEO of Aramco Korea; Ulsan Mayor Kim Sang-uk; landscape architect Chung Young-sun; and Oh Se-geol, chairman of the Ulsan Metropolitan City Council of Social Welfare. [Ulsan City]
Participants pose at the MOU signing ceremony for the Aramco-Chung Young-sun Ulsan Garden project, which will create a public garden representing Korea at Taehwa River National Garden. From left: Khalid A. Radi, CEO of Aramco Korea; Ulsan Mayor Kim Sang-uk; landscape architect Chung Young-sun; and Oh Se-geol, chairman of the Ulsan Metropolitan City Council of Social Welfare. [Ulsan City]

Global energy company Aramco and celebrated Korean landscape architect Chung Young-sun have joined forces to build a public garden representing Korea at Taehwa River National Garden in Ulsan.

Ulsan City held an MOU signing ceremony Tuesday at city hall for the Aramco-Chung Young-sun Ulsan Garden project, funded by a donation from Aramco Asia Korea and carried out by the Ulsan Metropolitan City Council of Social Welfare.

Ulsan Mayor Kim Sang-uk attended the ceremony alongside Khalid A. Radi, CEO of Aramco Korea; Kim Moon-ju, director of Aramco Korea; Oh Se-geol, chairman of the Ulsan Metropolitan City Council of Social Welfare; and landscape architect Chung Young-sun.

The project is part of Aramco's corporate social responsibility initiative known as the "Donghaeng Project," through which the company will donate $750,000 to the Ulsan Council of Social Welfare.

The council will develop a 7,000-square-meter garden planted with native Korean species within the Taehwa district of Taehwa River National Garden, with construction running from August through October.

Ulsan City said the garden will be developed as a premium public space combining the ecological value of the Taehwa River with native plant life, built around three themes: a message to humanity in an era of climate crisis, the philosophy of Korean gardens in harmony with nature, and a garden that embraces the life found in Korea's mountains and rivers.

Chung will oversee the entire process from concept and design to construction. She is the first Korean to receive the Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award from the International Federation of Landscape Architects, the organization's highest honor, often called the Nobel Prize of landscape architecture.

"I am deeply grateful to Aramco Korea for its contribution to the creation of the Aramco-Chung Young-sun Ulsan Garden," Mayor Kim said.


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