From Ideas to Implementation, Transforming Limits into Opportunities in Design
Session 1. The City of Today: Urban Design Strategies for Seoul as an Inclusive City
From Ideas to Implementation, Transforming Limits into Opportunities in Design
- LEE DAL-WOO, CEO of Studio Maeum
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.
Story from the heart that is conveyed through keywords
Love
The first keyword is love. I want to talk about love with ease. Maum Studio executed a project for North Seoul Art Museum (SeMA). There is a small lounge space on the first floor, and since there are so many apartments and people in the neighborhood, the request was to create a space for children in the museum. Maum Studio set the concept as ‘space where everyone will laugh and express love’, and the idea was given at the time by my seven-year-old son. My son said, ‘I hope there are tanks in the play area’, and I asked him if he wanted to play soldiers. He answered, ‘I think everyone will laugh if hearts are fired’. I thought both children and mothers would resonate with that message so I decided to create space from that idea. Hearts would be coming out of small and large holes in the space. I made hearts that can be shown to other people based on children’s mindset in an area where children can play and hide at the same time. In truth, Maum Studio not only creates spaces but also works on graphics and produces merchandises.
Design studios these days like to scale out a single idea into a wide spectrum. So, Maum Studio made a pencil sharpener. We made a heart-shaped pencil sharpener thinking while about spread this to a more diverse group of people. The studio also operates a showroom and a shop called ‘Love Peace Maum’, and more information can be seen through SNS. Heart provides joy as it grows from one heart to three to five and so forth. There is also an item called Mang Chi Man here. It provides a message that ‘strength was lost because there is no love’, and we made paperweights and vases while wondering about how to convey that message. The showroom is in an alleyway. Even when all lights are turned off, one heart shape stays lit. I thought that it would add cuteness to the neighborhood. It was thought that such factors would be ways for Maum Studio to convey love about small design.
Memory
Hanwha made a request for an apron design. When asked about the usage, they said they needed aprons to be used by daycare teachers when they are reading books to children. They hoped that children would remember that the teachers were wearing something big like a leaf wrapped around them later on when they grow up even if they don’t remember anything else. Sometimes, the children would play on the leaf that is spread out or would cover themselves up like a blanket. Teachers would create a space with the apron and can easily gather children using it. Aprons can spread out widely and since it may be dangerous for teachers if children were to pull on them, I thought that it might be preferable for people wearing them to be stronger. There were also other projects that were carried out.
Following the apron project, there was a daycare project worked on together with Hanwha Life, and we needed to propose an experience that could evenly be enjoyed by all students in various day cares at a fixed cost. At the time, we observed the characteristics of children in daycare, and we noticed that they were slow of speech. It was said that children learn speech quickly when they live together with adults, but the learning speed slows down when they are together with children of similar age. Considering this, I thought it would be better to generate elements that could be using five senses. Since there weren’t many opportunities for children to enjoy their privacy in daycare, we wanted them to enjoy some personal space. This led to the creation of the play mat. We allowed children from 36 daycares to enjoy the experience at a cost of creating a single space. We enabled various activities related to five senses. Children can use a large space by connecting the mats.
Fun
Maum Studio was in charge of several projects for Monami’s concept store. In the process, we created DIY concept to give a more direct sense of joy to consumers. We proposed a method to assemble Momani pens with various colors. One Monami pen sold in the concept store of Monami costs KRW 10,000 ~ 15,000. However, we thought that it might be of a cost burden to many middle and high school students who visit the store and pondered that it might be more preferable for students to assemble the colors they desire because Monami is a mass brand that is comfortably used by everyone. They can become future customers of Monami. In addition, we separately presented a color assortment package for this.
Respect
There is the PODO Museum constructed by architect, Itami Jun, in Jeju Island. The concept of PODO Hotel was the roof of a common house in Jeju Island. It was named after grapes because the shape resembled grapes that were entangled together. Maum Studio created the PODO Muserum lounge, and fixtures and fittings were configured to resemble strings woven together as an extension of respecting the intention of the architect and the relationship between PODO Hotel and PODO Museum based on the concept. We expressed vitality by adding depth to acrylic.
Imagine
Last year, we were in charge of the Seongsu-dong Store for a pen company in Japan called Pilot. Pilot is excellent in terms of technological capability, but I thought it needed a to be appealing the brand from the emotional perspective. So, I thought about how to return this emotion as a good memory and I decided to set spaces that collect memorable wordings in a folder as the concept under the theme of, ‘office that collects precious wordings’. When we write, we mainly use circles and lines. Hence, space and supplies were created only using circles and lines. I discovered humanism in conveying precious wordings. So, I collected meaningful phrases and wordings related to fighting and reconciliation and so forth in 100 folders. These were written using pens. I thought that we could implement a warm pace with only the pen that we produce.
Value
This is the project of Amnesty, an international social organization. A souvenir shop of Amnesty was constructed to celebrate its 50th anniversary in Korea. The purpose was to inform more people about this organization and to express the value of Amnesty such as solidarity, love and equality. Maum Studio welcomed the occasion to join hands as Amnesty is an organization that talks about human rights. The initial idea was to show candles that light objects in a more enjoyable manner. Therefore, we created the ‘Cho Shop’, a shop that can spread light. We expressed several ways to light places with the candlelight. We also just sent matches in the invitations related to the shop because you need matches to light candles. We held an event to hand out candles when visitors came to the showroom with the matches that were received, like a ritual that connects our hearts. All supplies were made under the theme of hope, solidarity and inclusiveness. Among these products, this chair is more unique. The person will fall if a person only sits on one chair. The chair can only be seated when there are three chairs together like this.
Nature
This was ‘Present’ exhibited in Daelim Museum. The concept was Paper Present and paper was the key material that was used. The biggest issue was that no matter how the designer loved nature and took motif from nature, it would only be an attempt to mimic. Mimicking nature in itself is a huge challenge and according to a quote from a book written by the author Yoon Gwang-jun, ‘You become astonished with the real nature’. I liked the story about how people could be touched by nature made by people in such circumstances. So, the start of Paper Present started from the thought about how to move others with the motif of nature. Paper that is twice the volume of actual usage amount was produced so that all visitors could touch paper in this space. However, no one touched papers because there were works from other artists made of paper in the bottom, which means that we still have a lot of inventory.
Hope
The next project to the introduced is an exhibition space. This was an exhibition space that went inside a hotel. The theme was love and hope, and we contemplated about how we could provide two things. The intention was to make the roof to look as if it collapsed because it was overflowing with love, but many people misunderstood. There is also the kinetic artwork that changes by alternating hearts and flowers. It was also planned with an intention that it would be preferable to embody the feeling of love when coming here while traveling or when leaving to travel.
Story that sums up all hearts
I introduced projects of Maum Studio based on several keywords starting with love and memory because I thought that everyone could have a more inclusive heart if we could continue to connect such hearts through design. This is because city is ultimately a world that individuals all live in. Maum studio started with a story, and so I would like to end with a story. Thank you.
