3rd Pre-forum
for 2022 Seoul Design International Forum
Participants: Lee Hyun-sung (Professor of Hongik University), Lee Jong-hyuk (Professor of Kwangwoon University) Seo Seung-gyo (CEO of HiDD Group), Hong Tae-eui (CEO of Public design STU.dio)
Seoul proposed forms such as cognitive health design, stress-free design, and crime prevention design through social problem-solving designs since 2014 and also continuously implemented design projects that realize various public values. We will take a deeper look on the types of issues that are identified by the design in our lives, and how design creates public values through use cases. The 3rd advanced forum will be carried out in the order of the role, strategy and method of design. In the first session, we will look into the role and value of design on universal issues and aging through the design of ‘consideration’. In the second session, we will study the cases of strategy that ‘resolve’ issues in our daily lives through design. Lastly, we will examine the meaning of the ‘governance’ design that is shaped together with citizens.
TALK 2. Values in daily lives that were changed by the public design
[Lee Hyun-sung]
The second topic is the value in our daily lives that were changed by the public design. Let us look into the roles that the design should play in resolving public issues.
Maeum-ful Project is a project that was executed to promote detoxify the youths from excessive reliance on smart devices and to prevent school violence. This is a design project that applies the concept of ‘biophilic’ that is known to be helpful in relieving stress as the green eco-space that is formed indoors
[Hong Tae-eui]
Biophilic is a concept that was proposed by a sociobiologist called Edward Wilson in 1984. According to the global report by Human Spaces, happiness improves by 15%, productivity improves by 6% and creativity improves by 16% when there are natural greens in our daily lives. This means that our daily lives can become happier through green areas. Maeum-ful Project used biophilic as design factors based on such a concept, and it drives youths to touch the ground and grass with their own hands and to grow them to lower their dependency on smartphones and to reduce stress in daily lives.
[Lee Jong-hyuk]
Maeum-ful Project is a very bold project. It promotes activities for students to personally manage pet trees and take care of plants in school, and expands this as a concept of community to drive active communication between one another. The meaning of greens is playing an extended role as a topic of common interest for students.
[Lee Hyun-sung]
Boldly creating a green space in school can actually become an issue in terms of maintenance. Therefore, the City of Seoul, students, teachers, parents, school plant-related experts, relevant university and relevant civic groups came together to establish a cooperative governance for the maintenance of the greens. Since the governance consisting of a diverse group of people is formed with space as a medium, it is creating interest in the community in addition to positive public values in the regional society.
[Seo Seung-gyo]
The solution called biophilic within the Maeum-ful project is quite attractive, but it is also meaningful in that it creates a governance to spread the influential power and impact through various stakeholders. In truth, what is really important is that rather than approaching issues in a fragmented manner or sharing information partially, experts came together to share and analyze the issues to find the solution. Therefore, this can be seen as a meaningful project from the perspective of the efforts made to understand the issue in all aspects and find a better solution.
[Lee Hyun-sung]
As Tim Brown mentioned, ‘Gratification comes in doing.’ I believe innovative design is something that is made during a process like governance rather than a result-centered design that surprises us. With the meaning that is embodied in the Maeum-ful Project that introduced the green space into the classroom, we were able to newly discover various public values in our daily lives. Such attempts are novel in that these are being used as the media for detoxification, stress relief and for the community.
[Lee Jong-hyuk]
There may be expectations in bringing an indoor garden into the classroom, but there could also be small conflicts. Nevertheless, the decision to adopt it while valuing and putting more weight on the positive impact is a part of a very good design process. I think it is a design case that is changing the world in our minds.
[Lee Hyun-sung]
The case of Chungshin Village involved the issue where there were many risks due to the shared use of the general road space consisting of sloped sidewalks by both cars and pedestrians. Demonstrative design project was carried out to resolve this issue, and we can see that many efforts were made to apply the ergonomic design that considers the physical attributes of users.
[Hong Tae-eui]
This is a narrow space in the form of an alleyway, and it is in a region that consists of steep inclines. In order to resolve this issue, facilities and spaces were established from the perspective of an affordance design that induces activities after observing the behaviors of pedestrians. For instance, since it is easier to pull a vertical handle towards a person’s body as compared to a horizontal handle, safe ripple handles were installed, and through the analysis of the behavior pattern where a person’s gaze naturally faces the floor when climbing a hill, the signboards were designed so that the information would be placed at the bottom. In addition, the project applied a design that encourages certain behaviors of the users such as creating a custom space that is fit for warm-ups so that the senior citizens can do simple warm-up exercises before climbing the stairs.
[Lee Jong-hyuk]
The design factors that were discovered for senior users are seen as favorable cases because it can be used to other spaces with the same issue. It is meaningful in that it does not necessarily have to be used only for elderly users, but it also includes many design factors that can expand out to be used for completely different purpose in other spaces within our daily lives. For instance, perpendicular handle can provide convenience while driving natural usage when considering that people are used to grabbing handles that are installed in general spaces. In other words, it is scalable, and it can be used as factors that can have completely different usage in different spaces with the same design.
[Lee Hyun-sung]
We could see that various concepts were applied to resolve problems in the design project of Seoul. For example, concepts such as biophilic, Attention Restoration Theory, Ergo, behavioral support and nudge were applied to resolve the issues from various perspectives that include psychological and emotional perspectives. I hope that such design projects will not only apply to certain spaces in Seoul, but will spread out to various living spaces in Korea so that the values in our daily lives that were changed by the public design can be realized.
[Hong Tae-eui]
I believe the value that the design has in our daily lives is ‘rest’. The concept of rest, in itself, has the objective for us to enjoy comfort, but rest also creates an opportunity for us to take another leap forward. Therefore, I think design in our daily lives would embody the concept of rest that is ordinary but with a possibility to take the next step forward.
[Lee Jong-hyuk]
After having looked at the cases implemented by Seoul, I think design is about ‘simplicity’. The design strategy that leads big behavioral changes through small but simple changes, such as applying a different layout to the existing space in our daily lives or placing small symbols, has been applied to many cases in Seoul.
[Seo Seung-gyo]
There is a phrase known as ‘Big Problem, Simple Solution’. In a big city like Seoul, complex issues are inevitable. The power of design is to satisfy many people with simple solutions that we can easily get our hands on when we are resolving such issues.
[Lee Hyun-sung]
Value of design is more attractive because it is not defined.
I hope that design will continue to expand and be applied as means that can enhance the quality of our lives by being used more diversely in our daily lives.
