Seoul Design
International Forum
서울디자인국제포럼

Enjoy a leisurely garden city on a hammock and net chair at Ttukseom 'haneulhaneul'!

- A hammock-style resting area made with net material will make its debut at the Seoul International Garden Show 2024 for the autumn season. - Modular fun designs, allowing citizens to experience them in their daily lives, will be implemented at Ttukseom Hangang Park until October 31st. - With flexible facilities that can be installed in various locations, it is expected that people can fully enjoy the leisurely autumn atmosphere in the garden. - The city will continue to develop and expand fun designs so that more citizens and tourists can experience them.

“Let’s enjoy a hassle-free picnic”Seoul City Creates Inclusive Picnic Space at Ichon Hangang Park

- Creation of a family-friendly waterfront leisure space for various activities such as rest, play, and cultural enjoyment. - Implementation of universal design with rounded edges on facilities to ensure safety for children and other users. - Improvement of access roads and widening to facilitate access for people with disabilities, including wheelchair and stroller users. - Development of the nation's first universal design guidebook for waterfront spaces, featuring image-based guidelines for entrances, passageways, and other areas. - The city is working to expand universal design in waterfront spaces so that citizens can enjoy "everyday fun."

Seoul Metropolitan Government Unveils New Brand Identity (BI) for 'Design City Seoul’

- New four-color BI symbolizes Seoul's landscape (exterior, Han River), as well as "companionship" and "charm - Developed to improve the status of 'Design City Seoul' and align with global standards - Utilization of UNESCO Creative Cities Network logo, design business promotional items and souvenirs, etc. - Seoul Metropolitan Government will "effectively communicate its identity as a design city and raise its international profile"

Citizen paintings transformed into moving media art, Gwanghwamun Square Hatchyard Media Wall exhibition

- Media art created through citizen participation is on display from 7.1.(Mon), 08~22 daily. - 18 flat images selected from the citizen contest are being presented in a film with motion graphics technology. - Following the spring exhibition, there will be a wealth of ‘Hatch and Soul Friends’ content and citizen participation events for the summer.

How about running after work? The Runner’s Station opens at Yeouinaru Station, the holy land for runners

- On the 21st (Tue), the opening of ‘Subway Station Innovation Project – Fun Station No.1’ - Utilizing spaces of two floors of the station, around 60 storage lockers, changing rooms, power rooms, and experience zones will be created - Operating various experiential programs such as stretching, posture correction digital coaching , and running course ranking boards - Starting this year with stations like Jayang, Ttukseom, and Sindang, plans are underway to add 10 more Fun Stations including City Hall and Munjeong Stations next year

Save the Whale in the Plastic Cup! Campaign in Cheonggyecheon for Earth Day

- Ahead of Earth Day, the “Goodbye Plastic Seoul” campaign will be held around Cheonggyecheon from Friday, the 19th. - Installations such as the “Whale Spewing Plastic” augmented reality (AR), fountains, and whale sculptures will be set to evoke empathy and encourage participation. - The city hopes that this campaign will increase the number of citizens participating in reducing plastic usage in their daily lives.

Running Festival Opens at Yeouido Park on the 20th (Sat) ... Yeouido Conquiered on Two Feet and Two Wheels

- On April 20th (Sat), the first “Seoul Runners Festival” held at Yeouido Hangang Park... with over 3,000 participants. - Events such as the donation challenge ‘8K Open Run’, running fair, running talk show, etc., were held...Next month, ‘Runners Station’ will opne, - The opening of ‘Yeouido Roller Rink’ under Mapo Bridge, providing a safe and free space for cycling, wheelchairs, etc. - The city aims not only to provide spaces for leisure sports but also to create a ‘healthy city’ through various programs.

Seoul Metropolitan Government increases Neighborhood Commercial District Awareness with Humorous Sculptures... Solving local issues through design

- To revitalize declining alley commercial districts, 20 types of design solutions such as photo zones, pet parking, and fun benches were implemented. - Signage was installed on the main streets to find hidden shops in alleys more easily. - The cultural street "Seonyuroun' focused on improving short visitor stays and low commercial district awareness. - Seoul Metropolitan Government's departments collaborated using design as a tool to enhance the quality of citizens and improve municipal achievements

'Horizontal Trashcan", easy to dispose and convenient for collection... a makeover as a urban icon

- Seoul pilot installation of 30 horizontal trash cans in 15 urban centers with high foot traffic such as bus stops of City Hall and DDP - Developed design of trash cans such as Type A, which is a simple form, Type B, which has an expression with 'fun' points and specialized types - Evaluate aesthetics, convenience, cleanliness, and ease of collection to improve the design... expanded through autonomous districts - The City expects that "street horizontal trash cans that consider the urban environment and convenience will improve the quality of life of the city"

Seoul transforms 'Runner Station' construction site into MZ Holin's 'attraction fence'

- Works by popular MZ generation artists on display from 3.29~4.14 at the construction site inside Yeouinaru Station - Construction site fence as a FUN space instead of a disconnecting space...Opportunity for emerging artists to participate in public design - Seoul, "Attraction fence that provides daily 'fun' to citizens... Expected to be utilized as an exotic photo spot"

Panel Discussion

Panel: Thomas Heatherwick(Founder of Heatherwick Studio), Shigeru Ban(CEO of Shigeru Ban Architectural Design Office), Meejin Yoon(Dean of Architecture and Art Design Cornell University, Partner of Howeler + Yoon Architecture), Choi In-gyu(Director-General, Design Policy Bureau, Seoul Metropolitan Government), Choi So-hyun(Head of NAVER Design & Marketing), Song In-hyuk(CEO of Unique Good Company), Lee Dal-woo(CEO of Studio Maeum) Moderator : Yoon Hye-gyung(Research Professor, Yonsei University)

The Innovative City for the Next Generation(the MZ Generation): Advancing Towards Ultra Connectivity and the Real World

This forum is an inspiring time for myself as well. Until now, we carried out discussions under the theme of the types of spaces that can act as the main characters and about relevant humanizing activities. In this session, we will talk about the perspective where we are the protagonists. Do you happen to know this song? ‘I love to play all day. Come join me, all my friends’. Do you know what it is? Yes. It is Pororo. What would have happened if we had children in this space? They would have disappeared as soon as we started because they would have said ‘This is not fun. I’m bored’. When we think back on our childhood, children could play all day long wherever they were as long as they had three things. The three things are playground, toys and friends.

Going Public

`The title of my presentation today is Going Public. This is an expression that is used in the financial industry. It is mentioned when a private company goes public after having attracted funding from the outside. The responsibility of the company grows when it gets listed. Against this backdrop, I would like to apply this to the city and humanizing city. Change in the mindset about the city I think of the change in the mindset about the city as ‘defining’. Going public is also related to creating a city for public interest. We learned a lot about social distancing during the pandemic period. We have returned to our normal lives and we are in the process of adapting to the social interactions once again. We are also actively interacting with the city again. Such interactions are always monitored, modeled and are being relayed. Technology is advancing at an unprecedented pace. In addition to the socio-economic challenges that are deeply rooted, climate change that could not be seen in the past is having a massive impact on the city. In particular, climate disaster is observed more frequently. Examples being record level heat waves and the rise in sea level and so forth.

Design 2.0 Design Policy and Future Strategies

I am honored to be speaking with Thomas Heatherwick and Shigeru Ban and I think the interesting designs of Lee Dal-woo was a good stimulus. I will. I will now think again about the actions to be taken by a big city like Seoul Metropolitan Government. My presentation will be about the fun city with vitality, Seoul. I will be presenting in the order of 5 Vision Principles that were carried out.

From Ideas to Implementation, Transforming Limits into Opportunities in Design

There is a slogan pursued by the design studio, Maum Studio. The slogan is Love, Play and Heart. We emphasize this slogan because Maum Studio believes that ‘ideas are equivalent to stories’. Today, I would like to take the time for us to all resonate about how story-based anecdotes implemented in Maum Studio started small and grew to become bigger. Against this backdrop, I would like to introduce the projects of Maum Studio centering on various keywords.

Role of Design: Assist Co-existence of People / Environment / Technology

I am Choi So-hyun, and I am in charge of design and marketing, and space and architecture at Naver. After hearing the presentation of the two previous speakers, Thomas Heatherwick and Shigeru Ban, I could also feel the excitement and tremor as a designer. I would like to talk about the theme of ‘Design that aids in coexistence of people, environment and technology’. I am confident that instead of being fearful of technology we can use technology to resolve the issues that we are facing and design can also play a critical role in a rapidly changing society. I hope you will think about what sort of work you do and the perspective you have as you sit here. You are here as urban planners but you are also probably here as residents of the city. Why don’t we think about how you want to live? I think you may find different answers depending on the individual contexts. Let me continue my talk with these questions in mind. Now, I will introduce you to various spaces of Naver. I hope that these various spaces of Naver will be a clue or a solution when you are looking for your own answers in your respective places.

The Social Role of Architects

I started building residence and residential spaces related to disasters, because I started thinking that, maybe in the past, I was designing for the privileged class. Because there are cases where people with wealth and authority will construct buildings and structures to visualize and show off their wealth and authority that is not tangible to the human eyes. That made me think that I should be constructing structures for the public and that is why I started building architectures in disaster sites. Of course, it is not bad to build architectures for the former. But we do need to think further about this. There are cases where developers and construction companies are pleased about new projects that may emerge when there is a disaster. However, the victims would of the disaster would be suffering a lot. That is why I thought that social role of an architect would like in supporting refugees of disasters.

Humanising our Cities

We are passionate about the environment and the buildings that surround us. I believe we are living in a very interesting era in the history. We actually have choices (rather than not having them). We can achieve very interesting transitions, if we were to make choices. However, such transformation cannot be achieved with the developers or the architects alone. We can only accomplish such changes when we all talk about buildings and the structures together.