[Panel Discussion] Discussion by Pre-submitted & On-site Question
Panel Discussion
Chair
Joo Yun KIM Master Public Designer of Seoul
Panel
Helle SØHOLT CEO & Founding Partner, GEHL
Uwe CREMERING CEO, iF International Forum Design GmbH
Sharon SO Director of Corporate Affairs, Engagement & Sustainability, L’Oréal Korea
Deana YU Assistant Director, Service Design Studio at NYC Mayor’s Office
Byungsu KIM CEO of Missionit Co., ltd
Q&A – Pre-submitted Questions
[(Chair) Joo Yun KIM]
My questions are finished, and we received many from the participants. We can’t take them all, so I’ll ask one per speaker.
First, CEO Helle Søholt: Jan Gehl’s urban-design principles suggest ways to create cities that attract citizens. If Seoul’s public design is to become something that truly makes people say, “It’s livable and I’m proud of it,” what one thing should we especially prioritize?
[Helle SØHOLT]
I would say focusing on the public spaces that are inclusive and for everybody is the most important thing for Seoul to do. And it's also inexpensive. It is so inexpensive in comparison with building buildings or big infrastructure projects.
To build public spaces for everyday life is what I think Seoul could do—with inspiration from Gehl and from Copenhagen, connecting all the way from the river to the mountain, connecting all the neighborhoods and the communities so that it's not only a quality of space for the center but for the entire city.
[(Chair) Joo Yun KIM]
Thank you.
I think that aligns well with Seoul’s ‘GO SEOUL’ system.
[(Chair) Joo Yun KIM]
Next question for Mr. Uwe Cremering: among public-design cases that tackle social issues and sustainability, either submitted to iF or seen abroad, what impressed you, and what common traits do they share?
[Uwe CREMERING]
I'm not a big fan of giving examples because then a lot of people are disappointed and give me calls or send me emails and ask me, why haven't you mentioned us? But let me maybe answer the question from a different perspective.
For us at iF Design, judging a product or a project is always a holistic view. So for us, sustainability is embedded in the entire criteria catalog with 20 percent. So we have five criteria; each criterion is 20 percent. And that is our understanding of how we should do it.
Of course we had discussions: shall we select three or five products out of 10,000 and say you get a green award? But we are not a fan of this. So we would like to challenge every product, all the 10,000 products, under sustainability, and we think it is the right way, because we have to save our planet and we cannot close our eyes. And for us it means if we see a product on the table which is good in form and idea and function, but very bad in sustainability, the chance to win an iF Design Award is low. And we think that is the right understanding in today's world. And maybe this is a valid answer to your question without giving a clear example.
[(Chair) Joo Yun KIM]
Thank you.
The word “holistic” resonates most with me.
[(Chair) Joo Yun KIM]
Our next question is for Ms. Deana Yu. Today, you spoke mainly about the process of co-design, and I felt that it also implies that governments and decision-makers need to share, or even relinquish, some of their authority. You may not be fully familiar with the current state of public service design in Seoul, but if there are any innovative co-design cases in New York that could serve as inspiration for us, please share them.
[Deana YU]
I’d like to answer by sharing an example from my own work.
The Design by Community project that I introduced in my presentation is one of the strongest examples of community participation among the projects my team has carried out. We collaborated with a nonprofit organization to develop a solution that enhances digital accessibility, and this year we’re expanding the program further by partnering with another New York City agency. I briefly mentioned this project earlier, but I’m glad to have the chance to elaborate on it now.
There’s a program in New York City called Participatory Budgeting. I understand that Seoul has a similar system. It’s a process through which citizens directly vote to decide how a portion of the city budget should be used. While this program is operated by another agency, our team proposed a collaboration: “Now that citizens have decided where the money should go, let’s also have them research how those ideas are actually being implemented.” That’s the pilot collaboration we’re running this year together with the NYC Civic Engagement Commission. The program is called People’s Money, and if anyone is interested, I encourage you to look it up to see what’s happening in New York City.
Our idea is clear: there are many programs in New York designed to strengthen co- design and participatory power. We’re thinking carefully about which partnership models make sense for Design by Community to continue growing. The ultimate goal is to enhance civic power, so that community ideas are not only funded by the government but also implemented and researched by the community itself.
So that's a partnership we're piloting this year with the Civic Engagement Commission. It's called “People's Money,” if anybody ever wants to look it up or see what's going on in New York City. Our idea is that there are people in New York City; there are programs in New York City that are about co-design and about participatory power. And we're thinking about what partnerships make sense for Design by Community to grow as a program, and the hope is that we can increase power overall. So not only are the ideas from the community budgeted or funded by the government, but they're actually implemented and researched by the community.
[(Chair) Joo Yun KIM]
Thank you.
Listening to everyone today, there were clear through-lines, it is a truly enjoyable design forum.
Next, Ms. Sharon So. In global projects focused on supporting local communities, from a global brand perspective, how should Seoul’s urban design reflect environmental and social values, and how can companies, especially L’Oréal, collaborate with the values Seoul pursues?
[Sharon SO]
Before I answer, let me share some concrete examples of L’Oréal’s community support:
L’Oréal is a beauty company with 37 brands worldwide, each running a “Brand Coach Program” tailored to its identity. For example, the sensitive-skin brand La Roche-Posay partners with hospitals and cancer centers to provide education programs on preventing and caring for skin issues that can arise during cancer treatment. As of last year, more than 4.5 million people have benefited worldwide from various Brand Coach programs.
At the corporate level, we operate an Inclusive Sourcing Policy to support employment for vulnerable groups. When selecting suppliers, we consider factors like senior and disabled employment, and whether the company is women-led. As of last year, this policy has contributed to the employment of over 70,000 people from vulnerable groups.
Combining corporate social programs and policies with the infrastructure and networks of the public sector to scale up is important. The key is to find touchpoints where corporate infrastructure and resources can address public environmental and social issues—and the starting point is dialogue.
[(Chair) Joo Yun KIM]
Thank you.
Lastly, Mr. Byungsu Kim: you’ve been pursuing design for safer, more convenient lives for all. When have you felt the greatest sense of reward, and how does that connect to building an inclusive society?
[Byungsu KIM]
As I mentioned earlier, we also produce content, the MSV Social Impact Series (Meet Social Value) magazine. Our first issue covered transport-disadvantaged people and public design; the second, job diversity for people with disabilities; the third, inclusive play for children with and without disabilities; followed by safety, seniors, inclusive libraries, and so on—we keep publishing on themes of inclusion and accessibility.
In the year we focused on inclusive play, we also held a pop-up exhibition on inclusive play spaces. Parents of children with and without disabilities, including developmental disabilities, came and shared opinions while their kids played freely together. One piece of feedback that stuck with me was: “I loved that my child wasn’t singled out because of their disability.” People often think of disability as something “special,” but in truth, it isn’t. The fact that all kids could run and play together, enjoy themselves the same way, and mingle without discrimination—that experience itself deeply moved those parents.
Another parent of a child with disabilities told us they wanted to place our book Inclusive Play and Play Spaces in their hair salon so that other parents—who may know little about children with disabilities—could learn about these values and contents. They even sent a thank-you email: “Thank you so much for making this book.” At that moment, I felt a strong conviction and sense of reward—“I’m doing truly meaningful work, and I need to keep doing it well.”
[(Chair) Joo Yun KIM]
That’s truly heart-warming and it’s remarkable that you’re doing this as an individual. Thank you.
Q&A – On-site Audience Questions
[(Chair) Joo Yun KIM]
We’ll now take questions from the floor. If you have a question, please raise your hand.
[Participant 1]
Hello, and thank you for all the talks today. I’ve worked in UX design for about ten years and I’m a designer with a strong interest in sustainability.
There’s a question I’ve been wanting to ask since the keynote, and I’d like to direct it to CEO Helle Søholt.
I currently run a climate-tech company, working on carbon reduction and climate- crisis response. The more I study the climate crisis, the more I feel people need to reduce, learn, and understand.
At the same time, as a 29-year-old in the MZ generation, I’ve felt increasing individualization among those around me lately. I’m not sure whether that’s just a trend, or a kind of futility in the face of such a massive problem as the climate crisis.
So listening to the entire program today, especially your keynote, I had this thought: You said we should create spaces where many people can gather, especially spaces where all generations can mingle. I understand in principle that gathering matters, but I’m curious about the fundamental reason we need to be connected and come together. The idea that we should gather feels obvious, but I’m not sure why it’s obvious. If I understood the basis for that, I think I could empathize more deeply and believe it more strongly. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
[Helle SØHOLT]
This is actually a really great question, because you are absolutely right that there are certain tendencies in our modern way of working and living and being an individual that draws us constantly in individual directions.
We have everything we need — our own washing machines, we make food at home, we watch movies at home. Now, we can even work from home. So, really, there's no strong reason, necessarily, for coming together anymore.
But in fact, we do because as part of the human nature, it is the need to be together with other people the need to feel part of a community. And we can see that in cities with tight communities, those cities are more resilient. So if there is a climate incident or a climate hazard happening, the communities that are already tight, sociable, and connected — that's where people recover the quickest, because they can help each other out.
So we as human beings, we are social creatures. We don't just have individual needs we have social needs. And to combat the loneliness that Uwe was talking about, we actually need to create opportunities for sociability in the cities. And this is also tied to citizenship in my view because the public spaces is something we share. It doesn't belong to anyone. It is a shared collective system in the city. And if it offers a lot of different opportunities, it has to be very different because everybody should find a place for them, a place for them to belong. They can feel that they are benefiting from that collective system as individuals. And then we can close the loop.
I hope that was the response even though it was long.
[(Chair) Joo Yun KIM]
We are social animals; in a way, even for our own happiness we need connected relationships. But for some people, being a bit at a distance from relationships, being detached, may make them happier. I think the question also comes from that angle. It makes me wonder whether, as much as we value being connected, we might have lost the happiness found in an appropriate distance.
[(Chair) Joo Yun KIM]
Does anyone else have a question?
[Participant 2]
Thank you for the talks. I also have a question for CEO Helle Søholt. Life Between Buildings is a life-changing book for me; it has moved me deeply and continues to influence me.
Korea is facing severe low birthrate and aging, while many foreign workers are also arriving. I believe these changes could lead to social conflict. As far as I know, there are also conflicts involving immigrants in Scandinavia, especially Sweden and Denmark. In this context, within urban space, how do you approach building an inclusive city, and what efforts are being made to resolve such issues? If you have relevant examples, please share them.
[Helle SØHOLT]
What we are trying to do in the Scandinavian countries is to make sure that we have diverse and socially mixed developments so that you have a lot of different types of typologies of housing in one area so that we make sure that all the poor people are not sort of living in only one area or immigrant people are living alone in another area and then all the affluent people is living in a third and so forth.
In order to make sure that we can actually deliver these mixed and dense, compact walkable neighborhoods, it is incredibly important to have adequate housing policies. I was talking about this earlier but for example, I was part of a committee in Denmark that advised the government to make sure that for every new development, 30 percent has to be affordable housing mixed in to the same development. We also have an affordable housing typology, which is this non profit housing that I was mentioning and actually one 4th of everybody in Denmark in the entire country live in this type of home.
It's not a social housing, it's just a nonprofit housing which makes the entry for renting an apartment in those areas lower. And this is incredibly important because our cities needs to be for all.
We need to have space for immigrant workers, nurses, the cleaners, the people that are working in food delivery, people that are working in our hospitals. We cannot only have cities that end up being for the most affluent and rich people in the country.
So mixed-use neighborhoods are the approach we’re continuously pursuing in the Scandinavian countries. And we’re being quite persistent in supporting this — not just in how neighborhoods are designed and built, but also through the economic models, as you’ve heard, and the social and housing policies behind them. This includes rental protection so that residents cannot be unfairly evicted, as well as mechanisms to prevent rents from increasing beyond a certain percentage each year.
Things like that can balance the market with the social mechanisms that we need to make sure that cities can be for all people.
[(Chair) Joo Yun KIM]
Thank you.
We’re out of time, so we’ll conclude the 2025 Seoul Design International Forum here.
On behalf of the Mayor and the City of Seoul, heartfelt thanks to our speakers for their participation and for staying through the discussion, and to everyone who showed interest and joined us today.
