'Floating Way' and 'Color Sphere' each take top honors

Space and color design capabilities on display

A view of "Floating Way" installed at Hillstate Pyeongtaek Hwayang [Hyundai Engineering]
A view of "Floating Way" installed at Hillstate Pyeongtaek Hwayang [Hyundai Engineering]

Hyundai Engineering has claimed consecutive wins at major design competitions, demonstrating differentiated strength in landscape architecture.

The company announced Thursday that it received the Grand Prize — the top rating — at the 2026 K-Design Award, and the RED (Innovation Award) at the 24th Korea Color Awards.

The K-Design Award is an international design competition that recognizes outstanding work across product, spatial and communication design, judging entries on originality, aesthetics and practicality. Hyundai Engineering took the Grand Prize in the spatial design category for its landscape-specialized product "Floating Way." The Grand Prize is the top rating, awarded to only the top 0.1 percent of all entries.

Installed at Hillstate Pyeongtaek Hwayang, Floating Way is a pedestrian walkway inspired by "sosomill-mil," a compositional principle from East Asian painting that plays on the contrast between open space and dense form. Centered on a skywalk that appears to float in the air, the design weaves together a grass plaza and a lush forest to create a layered, three-dimensional experience.

"Color Sphere" installed at Hillstate Cheomdan Central [Hyundai Engineering]
"Color Sphere" installed at Hillstate Cheomdan Central [Hyundai Engineering]

At the 24th Korea Color Awards, the media art installation "Color Sphere" took the RED prize.

Organized by the Korean Society of Color Studies, the Korea Color Awards recognizes outstanding work across landscape, architecture, interior, visual and video design, evaluating entries on cultural and industrial value, creativity, public benefit and social contribution. The RED is given to works that present new value through innovative use of color.

Color Sphere, installed in the landscape area of Hillstate Cheomdan Central, is a media art installation that combines light, color and sound. It uses color to shape the identity of a space and engage with the people who use it.

The wins are notable because Hyundai Engineering's landscape-specialized products earned recognition in two distinct fields — spatial design and color design — simultaneously. "Going forward, we will continue to raise customer satisfaction through design that carefully considers how customers live and experience their surroundings, and contribute to a better quality of life," a company official said.

Meanwhile, Hyundai Engineering was also recently selected for a bronze-level Commissioner of the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards Award in the special ergonomic design category at the 2026 Good Design Award.


lucky@heraldcorp.com