Jung Youngsun is one of South Korea’s first generation of landscape architects, and the nation’s first licensed woman practitioner. Born in 1941, Youngsun graduated from the Department of Agriculture at Seoul National University in 1964 and gained the title of “land development engineer” from the same university in 1975. She worked as a professor at Cheongju University and adjunct professor at Sungkyunkwan University before establishing her practice SeoAhn Total Landscape in 1987. From 2010 to 2012, Youngsun was chair professor at the landscape architecture department at Seoul National University.

During the course of her career, Youngsun has transformed the practice of landscape architecture in South Korea, translating the discipline’s Western conventions for the country’s own cultural and ecological contexts. As the peninsula’s cities densified, the office sought to protect its biodiversity through major projects including Cheonggye Stream Restoration (Section 1, 2002–2005) and Seonyudo Park (1999–2002), which anticipated contemporary movements in urban landscape architecture in integrating natural processes. In recognition of the global influence of her work, Youngsun received the International Federation of Landscape Architects’s Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award in 2023.