Dr Kyung Wook Seo

Dr Seo is Associate Professor at the School of Architecture and Built Environment, Northumbria University in Newcastle upon Tyne in the United Kingdom. He has an expertise in Architectural Morphology, focusing on Formal Interpretation of Buildings and Urban Networks.

Dr Seo is Jury President of the Japan World’s Tourism Film Festival (JWTFF), Vice-President of Korea Institute of Ecological Architecture & Environment (KIEAE). He was an honorary recipient of JSPS Invitational Fellowship from Japan Society for Promotion of Science in 2023 and Visiting Professor at Seoul Tech and Korea University in 2023. 

His research areas are: Time-based Design, Tourism, Housing Culture, Environmental Behaviour, Spatial Perception, Space Syntax and Shape Grammars. Recent publications include:

Shape of Us: Forms of Body, Objects, and Culture (Hangilsa Publishing, Seoul Korea, Jan 2026)

Spatial Compression in Memory: How Repeated Walks on Familiar Routes Shorten Perceived Distance (Behavioural Science, 2025)

Architecture as Frozen Music: Perception of Crossing Boundaries as Audible Experience (Archnet-IJAR, 2023)

Finding Generative Rules in Settlements and Houses by Means of an Ideographic Language (Nexus Network Journal, 2023)

As a leading expert on Social Housing, Dr Seo has completed three major international funded projects:

Social Housing Design in the Post-Pandemic Era, National Research Foundation of Korea, (2022-25; Overseas PI, 148,731 GBP)

The Future Dwelling Model for the New Town Development in Korea, Korea Land & Housing Corporation (2019-20; Co-I, 454,871 GBP)

Development of Structure-Infill Housing for the Low-income Population in Malaysia, British Council (PI, 133,787 GBP, 2015-16).

Before joining Northumbria, Dr Seo was Head of Department at Kyonggi University in South Korea, and a fulltime architect at Daewoo Construction Company in Korea, Wendel-Duchscherer Architects & Engineers in the USA, and Archiplaza Architects in Korea.

He got the Bachelor of Architectural Engineering from Korea University, Master of Architecture from Georgia Tech in the USA, and PhD in Architectural Theory from Bartlett, University College London under the supervision of Professor Julienne Hanson and Bill Hillier.