Seoul Design
International Forum
서울디자인국제포럼

Special Interview: Ezio Manzini

To answer this question a premise is need. To do it, I refer to what I wrote a decade ago​1)​ : in a fast and profoundly changing world, everybody designs. ‘Everybody’ means not only individual people, groups, communities, companies and associations, but also institutions, cities and entire regions; and ‘design’ means that, whether they like it or not, all these individual and collective entities are forced to bring all their designing capabilities into play to devise their life strategies and put them into practice. The result of this diffuse designing is that society as a whole can be seen as a huge laboratory in which unprecedented social forms, solutions and meanings are produced and social innovation is created. Therefore, to discuss “What do you think the city government should do to improve the value in the cities and in the lives of their citizen through design” we can refer to two types of design skills: (1) that of experts (expert design) and (2) that potentially widespread among citizens and citizen organizations (widespread planning). It follows that, for cities, the main objective should be to promote the design capabilities that are widespread in citizens and in their organization. This is the way to release the energies that exist in the city. To do this it is necessary to develop a new type of governance which could be called collaborative governance. In this framework, the role of design experts should be to activate and support the capacities of citizens and their organizations to be active and to use their widespread design potential.

We Solve Problems Around Us on Our Own! (2)

When a case of a child abuse is reported, the abused child is separated from parents, needs to wait at a police precinct or police station to undergo an investigation and has to live in a child protection agency. During this process, the child feels uneasy and stressed by unfamiliar spaces and people. In addition, the child may feel the guilt of causing this situation by his or her own fault. “Hoya Toto” was devised as a solution to resolve the anxiety of abused children in the unfamiliar environment by forming a bond with police officers.

We Solve Problems Around Us on Our Own! (1)

Citizens are the people who best know the various discomforts experienced while living in a city. There is a limit for public officers and administrative experts who try to close the distance to solve the problems felt by the citizens. In 2015, the SMG introduced “design governance” as a public design project to receive reports from people on public problems and improve the problems with a team comprising citizens, experts, and businesses. All the progress and outcomes of the project were made public on the website to be spread and utilized flexibly.

Sustainable Clothing Design for Children With Cerebral Palsy With the Heart of a Mother

Public design that turns daily inconvenience into something beautiful and efficient; the “needs” of public design start from the following three situations. First, people are too familiar with the problem situation. Second, there is no known solution, or the needs are in the blind spot of the managing body. Third, the needs cannot be discovered easily because of special circumstances. This is the reason why the starting point of successful public design should be accurate identification of the inconvenience of users.

Special Interview: Rachel Cooper

When thinking about Design as a resource for the city, it is important to understand the attributes of Design. Thinking about the Design process and the ability to translate numerous interdependencies into a tangible visions, is very much the value of Design. Many government organisations are looking to Design as a way of creating value, buy helping policy makers rethink policy, around issues such as net zero, health and wellbeing. Design organisations within government should be organised in such a way that they are able to synthsise science social, science and cultural insights, to help policy makers, and citizens co-imagine alternative furture, imagine the implications, benefits of policy and service design. This means Designers at the heart of government in policy labs, insight and foresight units. In terms of creating value one of the areas that design needs to engage with is the notion of value… how does new policy, new services, new urban design contributribute to environmental value and social value. Much work has been undertaken on establishing the natural capital value of enhanceing environments through policy making and design, much less has been done on how to establish social value through Design and quantify and evaluate it. This is the much more complicated area where Design needs to establish a strength.

Special Interview: David Berman

Let me answer with a story. In the summer of 2008, I had the honour of meeting Mayor Oh Se-hoon at Seoul City Hall as part of the Seoul International Design Forum for which I had travelled from Canada for. On the way to the event, my first time in the city, I was struck by how integrated the design disciplines were. I recall saying to a colleague “When we were in China, we were saying they are catching up with us. In Korea, they have already blown by us.” Why? In Canada, the design disciplines were siloed: here in Seoul, they were delightfully integrated, both horizontally and vertically: from alphabet to surface to building to infrastructure. To discuss one without the others simply didn't compute, and I wondered “How is this done”? The answer came when I was introduced to the person to the Mayor’s left: their business card read “Chief Design Officer”. At that point in my career as a speaker, I had travelled to over 40 countries, and this was the first time I had heard of a City having a CDO. This explained how Seoul was doing such an impressive job of integrating the design disciplines. Ever since, in many travels, I have shown that card as evidence of a keystone to excellent design governance ... to any government clients who would listen. Here in Canada, we have our design strengths that are admired by others, such as our leadership in inclusive design, our national flag, and many other proud habits. However, every time someone in our government asks me how we can maximize the value of design I tell them it all starts with what Seoul has done: every major plan should be vetted by a CDO in the C-Suite, sprinkling design thinking into every project charter.

Panel Discussion

The theme of the 2021 Seoul Design Forum is Re-Connect: Design as a Value Creator. If the main purpose of design is to create new value, what value creation should design focus on, unlike value creation in other areas? We wonder what the difference will be in terms of value creation from a corporate or public perspective.

Metaverse Dreams of A Shared, Connected and Expanded City

Why Do We Desire Cities? Homo sapiens and Neanderthals had something in common. They both built houses or small cities and lived in groups to survive in the wilderness. But outcomes were different. Homo sapiens indeed survived, while Neanderthals became part of history. Unfortunately, we can spot in our cities several factors that pushed Neanderthals into extinction. We’ll explore them further in a unique world known as the metaverse.

Evolution of Social Problem-solving Methodology

LBS Tech is a startup that defines and solves social problems by providing a platform for the use and mobility of people with visual and physical disabilities. It supports people with disabilities in “using” ordering, payment and reservation services efficiently. On the other hand, it also provides convenient “mobility” services by providing building information, pedestrian navigation, and user location information. The fundamental basis of the systems comes from careful consideration of cities.

Absolute Value of Design and Innovation – Thinking Beyond Competitiveness

Previous design innovation aimed at gaining a competitive edge, but today’s design innovation in products, services, or policies raises the necessity of absolute values. In order to establish “good brands,” companies and institutions should bear in mind that unlike the past, it is hard to build trust when there is no originality as distribution channels of content diversify, resulting in intensifying competition. Customers can now compare and analyze various brands thanks to increasing data and diversified channels conveying such information. In other words, creating innovative momentum or developing brands using previous method is no longer effective. As customers today access numerous contents, unforgettable consumer experiences can only be made through a new dimension of challenges; hence, the need for absolute innovation. Companies mainly consider “the targets to connect their products, services, and policies with” for absolute innovation. Still, the most significant thing is to understand the core value of services, products, and policies which have strong chemistry with customers based on understanding the momentum of customers.

Design Strategies that Make Urban Experiences Special

Welcome, everyone. I’m Lee Hye-young, director of Design Policy Division at the Seoul Metropolitan Government. This year’s event is held under the theme of ‘Re-connect: Design as a Value Creator.’ In line with this, I’ll focus on various values that design offers by sharing people’s experiences in my presentation. What are some experiences that you find special? We face many different situations in life and go through numerous emotions. We sometimes feel afraid, isolated, or bored. Some cities give us negative emotions mostly, while others make us feel calm, excited, or respected. Cities should provide positive experiences to residents as well as visitors. Then what role can design play to help cities achieve this goal? I’ll share some examples in Seoul to demonstrate the values that design can bring as a core urban strategy.

Citizen-centered Problem Solving, The Value and Performance of Social Problem Solving Design

This presentation aims to accomplish three goals - to introduce concepts and methodologies of social problem-solving design; to draw value of social problem-solving design from cases shared at the previous forums hosted by the city of Seoul; and to put forward designers’ future role and vision in relation to the evolving social problem-solving design. Intro: Widening a Role of Design Across the globe, we’re seeing more complex and diverse issues in our society ranging from social structures and policies, climate change, pandemics, to inequality. Design’s role and potential are expanding in addressing these issues. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety has included public service design in the Administrative Procedures Act to encourage citizen participation. Similarly, the Seoul Metropolitan Government has incorporated social problem-solving design into its policies and general plans.

The Value of Universal Design Enhanching a City Branding and Success

The Universal Design International Seminar hosted by the city of Seoul from 2016 to 2020 made a contribution to the evolution of universal design. And we’re in the process of re-connecting the achievements so far with values that create urban competitiveness and branding. At the same time, the unprecedented pandemic has upended every aspect of our life, causing distress and a sense of alienation. Against this backdrop, the presentation focuses on the necessity and achievements of design policies incorporating ‘design as a value creator’ into people’s everyday lives and our society that yearn for restoration and healing.

City Desgin as Investment in the Future

Welcome, I’m Oh Se-hoon, the mayor of Seoul. It is my great pleasure to be here at the Seoul Design International Forum. I would also like to express my gratitude to the speakers. Today, I would like to focus on ‘urban design.’ Design is capable of creating values. And cities must be able to offer values to their residents. When cities have values, they become more competitive and provide a happy, fulfilling life. Therefore, design is a key tool that drives cities’ competitiveness. A city is our legacy for generations to come as they pioneer into the future. Given this, urban design is an investment for the future.

Flow: Mobilising Data for Sustainable Outcomes

Cities have undergone transformations in the last centuries based on two paradigms. The first paradigm was the rapid development of infrastructure in the 20th century, and the second paradigm was transportation — the introduction and expansion of vehicles. The next paradigm will be the advent of the fourth industrial revolution leading data-based technological development for smart cities. Then, how can we define practical technologies in the future?

Better Cities through Design to Improve Life

The Index Project was started in 2002 to educate and encourage people worldwide to draw sustainable solutions to global and social issues. Design and design processes engage in improving the quality of our lives and the community. The project is based on a “design to improve life,” a concept that has been mentioned since 2002. Thus, we take a user-centered design approach and consider their impact on sustainable society, economy, and environment.

A Call For Optimism

What Design Can Do Approximately 10 years ago, Denmark designers organized the design group What Design Can Do. It is a design studio that leads and forms various initiatives. Moreover, it has developed into an international organization with principal offices in six countries at present. Focusing on establishing international design community, What Design Can Do plays an active part in providing solutions for significant issues in today’s society. As we all know, the climate crisis is the most significant assignment for humanity in this era. What Design Can Do focuses on climate issues to consider deeply how design can fulfill social responsibilities and contribute to society.

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