KAIST will welcome 2024 with a rebranded main campus as it expects most of its buildings under construction to be completed by the end of the year. According to Cheol-gyu Han from the Construction Team, four buildings that are currently in-progress are set to finish this year: the KAIST Art Museum (by December), the Meta-Convergence Building (between April and May), the Central Analysis Center (between April and May), and the Applied Engineering Building (by April). In an interview by The KAIST Times with Jaeseong Yoo, the current leader of the Construction Team, they were able to uncover multiple projects aside the aforementioned buildings, which are all described below.

The Applied Engineering Building (W1) is a remodeling project that is expected to be the first among all projects to finish, alongside concurrent renovations of other department buildings like the Mechanical Engineering Building (N7) and the Information & Electronics Building (E3). Meanwhile, the Meta-Convergence Building being constructed in front of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) Building is expected to be a hub for artificial intelligence research inside KAIST, and the Central Analysis Center is being expanded to accommodate more analytical equipment for research. 

Furthermore, the KAIST Art Museum being constructed beside the Main Library (E9) aims to promote the humanities and other creative fields to KAIST students. The building will consist of three floors, of which only the first floor will be opened to the public during its launch due to budget constraints. How the upper floors are to be designed will be determined after analyzing the museum’s utilization over a certain period of operation. Although the construction of this building is expected to finish by December, it may be prolonged depending on prospective budget raises.

Aside from these four mentioned projects, more buildings are on the way to being constructed. The KAIST Space Research Institute is scheduled to be constructed this year, which will propel KAIST’s space research. It will consist of several sub-institutes focusing separately on topics like space propulsion, space health, and core space technology. It is anticipated that the institute will hold collaborations with external institutes, and various KAIST departments like the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences have expressed solid intentions to collaborate with research to be conducted in this institute.

On the other hand, the exterior of the IBS KAIST Campus research facility has already been constructed,  having started its construction in October 2020. With the main IBS campus being about 15 minutes away from KAIST near Expo Park, this in-campus facility will support five unique research groups in the field of basic sciences, namely the Synaptic Brain Disease Research Group, the Molecular Catalysis Reaction Research Group, the Vascular Research Group, the Advanced Research Dynamics Research Group, and the Axion and Extreme Interaction Research Group. As of now, the interior of the building remains under construction.

Finally, several other projects remain in the design stage, such as the concept of the KRAFTON Building, the Smart City Engineering Center, the Meta-Convergence Building for the Elderly, and the Advanced Science Animal Experiment Building in the Munji Campus. The Department of Aerospace Engineering Building (N7-5) will also be expanded, and the construction of research centers supported by LOTTE are also in the planning stage. These buildings include the LOTTE-KAIST R&D Center and the LOTTE-KAIST Design Center, which will be designed for the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the Department of Industrial Design, respectively. These research facilities will be a place for potential collaborations with LOTTE Group’s departments.