Cases
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The Process and Outcomes of the COVID-19 Design Challenge
Insights and Applications for the Post-Corona Era; The start of a design challenge related to COVID-19 Design has great power. Design has the power to motivate people to do many things, such as taking action, creating products and services that make life simple and rich, and deriving a whole new experience. Designers basically carry out design work assigned to their organizations, but in addition to these daily tasks, they have the power to solve the world's biggest problems. I expressed these ideas in the keynote speech last August at the Design for America Summit, where I urged designers to solve the biggest challenges facing the international community through a bold approach. And it wasn't long before the COVID-19 virus outbreak, which had effects worldwide. I thought that there must be a solution that designers can bring to meet the huge challenge of the Corona crisis. After discussing how we should contribute to this challenge by making a difference together with like-minded people like World Design Organization’s Srini Srinivasan and Rebecca Breuer and Liz Gerber of Design for America, we decided to launch the COVID-19 Design Challenge and bring the designer community together. Our starting point was to reach out to designers in each community and ask them what challenges they might face with COVID-19. Altogether, there were over 180 challenges, and they were recorded on Post-it notes and categorized according to themes. We grouped the related ones together and marked them on the priority grid in order of high impact and urgency, considering whether it is a task we need to address, what impact it will have, and whether it can affect urgency and resolution. -
Considerations regarding healthy city after COVID-19
1. Statistical figures on the status of coronavirus outbreaks by city in Korea Since the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in South Korea on January 20, 2020, the coronavirus has spread rapidly in Korea, peaking on February 29, 2020. Since then, there has been a rapid re-spreading trend twice up to October, and the capital city, Seoul, has 53.13 confirmed cases per 100,000 population, the third highest number after Daegu and Gyeonggi-do. -
Health of the residents and city shelter in the post pandemic era
The pandemic that dramatically changed the daily lives and the work environment across the globe is going through a recovery phase in all metrics. Experts have predicted that the humanity will have daily lives that is different from the period prior to the spread of Covid-19 based on the New Normal (Standard that is newly emerging with the change in the era) phenomenon that resulted from the prolonged spread of the infectious disease, and as such, many cities and citizens started to face a new life.
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Impact and evaluation in designing social innovation
What is the most important agenda in social innovation design? This island metaphor (image) is useful to think about designing. This metaphor helps us to pay attention to both the visible things at the surface, like design products, materials, methods and technologies, and also the invisible things under the water, like values, behaviours, mindsets and worldviews. Designing is a way to make what is invisible under the water, visible. For designing that pursues social outcomes, it is very important to pay attention to people’s values, behaviours, mindsets and worldviews under the water, and undertake designing that materalises what people regard as valuable outcomes for their social well-being. When designing social innovation, this also means listening to local communities and residents, and understanding what matters to them that may be invisible, under the water, and collaborating with them to materialize those values as outcome of designing. There are various tools, methods and approaches in design that are used to achieve those social outcomes together. -
Seoul Universal Design 100
The concept of urban design that we share today can be found at the beginning of the Joseon Dynasty when Great Monk Muhak planned the city by applying the philosophy of Yin and Yang Five Phases at the time, while looking at Hanyang Land with Lee Seong-gye. The traces of urban design that began in this way entered modern times and established an image of a city that combines the past and the present, and we can see traces of this urban design in old palaces, and walls throughout the city. These days, the urban landscape around us remains in the past only, or there are misleading examples of creating a desolate forest of buildings without harmonizing with nature in a biased appearance with only modern beauty. As a city is a place where various people live together, the design should also be created by various people. The most important thing here is the citizens, the actual 'users' of the city. Changes in urban design can begin with the question "How did you consider city users?" -
2020 Seoul Design International Forum - Universal Design
2020 서울디자인국제포럼
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Strategy to expand cognitive health design
Cognitive health design project, which is one of Seoul’s representative design policies to resolve social issues, began in 2014 to apply the design that reflects the physical, emotional and social characteristics centered on residential environment of senior citizens to respond to aging society and sudden growth in the elderly with dementia. The concept of cognitive health design that may rather be unfamiliar to the general people is connected to a series of processes that allow us to see objects, acquire information and make judgement in our daily lives. There are cases where people face unexpected accidents or where functional abilities decline due to aging during the lifetime of humans, and there are also situations that are difficult to be resolved in the medical field. Seoul’s cognitive health design project that can act as a guide in such circumstances is a project that enhances the maintenance and enhancement of cognitive functions such as declined memory, concentration and orientation capability of senior citizens through contents involving physical activities, stimulation of the five senses and social exchange, for the first time in Korea. -
A safe space for medical care that boosts resilience and recovery for all
It's been two years since the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic and healthcare professionals have been battling the virus. As the pandemic prolonged, we have been practicing social distancing and self-quarantine in everyday life for the past two years. The unusual situations which people never experienced before became a new normal, and physical distancing and the Stay Home Stay Safe campaign were implemented to minimize direct contact with other people, which ushered into the “Untact” era. Meanwhile, frontline healthcare professionals that treat patients with COVID-19 are directly exposed to the virus and having a very challenging time. Healthcare workers have been known to have a very high level of stress and fatigue even before the pandemic, however, the outbreak of COVID-19 led to the huge demand exceeding the capacity of healthcare systems, and healthcare workers were put under extreme strain due to overwork and chronic stress. -
Universal Design for Leisure Facilities Cities
User survey for ski resort design reflecting universal design In 1998, at the Winter Paralympic Games in Nagano, 710 disabled skiers were surveyed on the perception and environment of skiing. The response rate was 35%, and the number of answers returned was 261. Interesting answers from the survey include "Skiing is a leisure activity, not a rehabilitation treatment," "I can't move my legs, but I can feel the speed," and "I can enjoy it fully without worrying about being compared to others because I'm exercising privately." In other words, skiing is an easy sport for anyone with any disability to try, and the number of elderly beginner skiers and skiers with disabilities might be expected to increase in the future.
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A Study on the Application of Universal Design for Urban Mobility of Buses - Seoul Design Foundation
The 'Universal Design Application Study for Urban Mobility of Buses', a collaborative study by Seoul Design Research Center’s TBS Research Center, Professor Young-Jun Koh of Seoul National University of Science and Technology and Professor Min-Hyeon Choi of Sungshin Women's University, started in June 2016 is expected to run until December 2016. The study aims to apply universal design principles to buses, bus stops, and bus operation information, establish a future bus service scenario study, and to study universal design in smart bus usage information. The ultimate goal is to generate universal design guidelines for buses and bus stops, universal design guidelines for operation information services, and near-future bus service scenarios. This study was based on preliminary studies including, 'Criteria for standard low-floor bus model (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, 2016)', 'Accessible bus stop design guidance (Transport for London, 2014)', 'Japanese standard specification low-floor bus guideline', 'LinkNYC (New York, USA) as well as 'Maps related to domestic and foreign bus use'. In order to identify the applicable factors, domestic and foreign bus usage surveys were conducted, by visiting Seoul, Japan (Fukuoka, Kyoto, Osaka), and London, UK. Bus stop facilities, and operation information at bus stops were the subject of the survey. In the case of domestic buses, it was found that the vertical handle in front of the wheelchair user area of the bus creates difficulties for wheelchair movement. The wheelchair lift operation sequence was difficult to understand as the instructions were only given in text. It was found that electric wheelchairs could be dangerous because they could not be fixed to the bus. -
Universal design of Yokohama City Current events in design
The evolution of universal design in Japan Yokohama City is an area with a population of 3.77 million. Its area is about three quarters of Seoul, and it is divided into 18 wards. It started with a population of 500 150 years ago, and after the port was established, the population increased. However, the rapid population increase between 1960 and 1970 caused problems in urban development. Yokohama is currently a city with a significant aging population. Although this is a problem for Japan as a whole, based on the analyzed data, the population growth trend of Yokohama City is expected to peak in 2019. After that, the proportion of the elderly population is expected to continue to increase, and it is expected that one-third of the total population will be elderly by 2030. Looking at the map showing the aging population, it is like looking at the history of how Yokohama's housing development has taken place. The beginning of universal design in Japan was triggered by the Tokyo Olympics 50 years ago. The Tokyo Olympics, held in 1964, introduced the use of pictograms to solve the problem of communicating with foreigners. In 1965, Braille blocks were introduced, and actual installation began in 1967. In 1969, awareness of the need to make the city accessible to wheelchairs increased. Braille blocks were first introduced in the provincial cities to the western part of japan, which is also the case with barrier-free access in Japan, which started in provincial cities rather than the capital. -
Universal Design for Public Space
Korea's aging population has increased rapidly since 2000, and it is expected to become a full-fledged aged society around 2018. The Third Basic Plan for Aging Society with Low Fertility, announced on October 18, 2015, includes various plans, such as reviewing the age classification for elderly from 65 to 70 years old. This shows that the aging of the population is recognized as a full-fledged social phenomenon, and that policy preparations are in progress. The concept and principle of universal design as a social phenomenon As awareness of our aging society increases, the application of universal design is also increasing. The first attempt at Universal Design was initiated by the Danish Parents' Association for Disabilities, and later emerged in 1970 as Barrier Free Design and Inclusive Design. The term ‘Universal Design’ was first introduced in Korea around 2000. The concept of universal design was defined by Ron Mace, director of the Universal Design Center at the University of North Carolina, as "designing products, spaces, or buildings that are considered for use by as many people as possible." The same concept was called Barrier-Free Design in Japan. Europe uses the terms Inclusive Design and Design for All. Universal design is an environmental safety design that provides a convenient and fair opportunity for anyone, regardless of age, gender, nationality, or disability, and covers a wide range of areas, including education, culture, information and services.
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Does the Crime Rate Drop By Changing Designs?
“Social problem-solving design” that changed our everyday life — life safety design The SMG implemented a design policy in 2007 and carried out city-centered policies for landscape improvement to reinforce the city brand. As a result, Seoul won the Grand Prize at the Index Awards, renowned for “Design to Improve Life,” in 2011. While looking for ways to use the prize money that came with the award, the SMG thought of socially disadvantaged citizens who could not benefit from the design policy. The SMG took a new step forward with the “social problem-solving design” project, which aims to reduce the grievances of people who cannot benefit from policies due to various reasons like having a busy livelihood. Having launched its first life safety design project in 2012, the SMG strengthened the roles of design in solving various social issues. Instead of policies and macroscopic systems, the concept of design has been expanded to public design to solve problems of varying sizes that influence the lives of people. The social problem-solving design projects of the SMG are divided into categories such as life safety design, cognitive health design, stress-free design, youth problem-solving design, and design governance. Each project utilizes the “service design” methodology, which derives relationship-centered solutions based on communication and awareness improvement beyond the improvement of the physical environment regarding social issues. This year, the social problem-solving design projects of the SMG marks its 10th anniversary. In celebration, we intend to take a close look at our surrounding environment and public design that have undergone small and large changes. -
SMG Universal Design
Until now, the public sector has prioritized efficiency enhancement through ‘standards’ in terms of service provision. Today, we are rapidly moving from mass production from the perspective of suppliers to the era of small batch production from the perspective of consumers. Because it is a smart era armed with various information and technologies, the standard framework alone cannot satisfy the diverse needs of citizens or lead to an affluent life. At this point, we need to think about who public design is for. WHO; Who is Universal Design for? Citizens who do not have disabilities and are still young do not feel the need to be specially considered by someone in their daily life. However, according to statistical data, the rate of congenital disability is only 5%, and temporary or situational disability that can be experienced in daily life accounts for a much larger proportion than permanent disability. Therefore, when we consider universal design in the public domain, we need to approach it from the perspective of various lives and situations, rather than looking only at people with disabilities. The diversity of physical conditions such as height, strength, dexterity, balance, attention, etc., the difference in language ability based on language and expressive power, the difference in sensory ability such as hearing, sight, and touch, and the difference in cognitive ability such as comprehension and intellectual ability that should be considered -
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.
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A new tool to discover an integrated and demand-oriented policy agenda for near future__ De-sign:Re-form
Design, which first started as an activity of creating tangible goods, is now creating intangible values in the form of experience and service design. As demand for digital services including mobile applications rises, user experience design that creates a system that evokes emotions started to get attention, and service design which focuses on finding invisible needs of users and developing a new service model has been widely adopted and used in various areas of industry including hospitals, banks, education institutions, etc. -
Design that draws a new world
You may remember the controversy, which took place between the right and the left sides in 2019 when the Republic of Korea commemorates its 100th anniversary, on the question whether the year 2019 is the 100th anniversary or not. However, when the first year of another centenary began in 2020, there was no proposal of ideology or vision for the next 100 years despite the controversy in the previous year. I thought that it just goes that way. Then, COVID-19 pandemic has swept the world, creating radical changes as if the pandemic cleans up the world. -
Social Problem Solving Design, Reinforcement of Resiliency Capacity Through Design
The COVID-19 pandemic is a crisis that no one has ever experienced. Existing social problems, such as economic recession, relative poverty, increased depression due to social isolation, and the intensification of suffering experienced by vulnerable groups such as infants, young children, the elderly, and the disabled, are being exacerbated by the pandemic. Medical staff and other members of society in various fields are making every effort to identify and deal with unpredictable situations in their respective positions, and the Seoul Metropolitan Government is also currently doing its best to overcome the Corona situation. We are now living in an era where problem-solving strategies are needed more than ever. There is an urgent need for a paradigm shift in policy to prevent and improve social problems that incur huge social costs, rather than reactive measures. Design is one of the main solutions to improve this, and it is a core competency and process that is already being used by many organizations and companies pursuing innovation as well as the public as a tool for solving problems. Through the social problem-solving design policy, the Seoul Metropolitan Government breaks away from the microscopic view of physical improvement and applies design to the overall municipal administration, designing a plan and process for problem-solving, and jointly solving it with various stakeholders. ‘Social resilience’ can be said to be the interaction between the vulnerability of a city and its resilience capacity. The vulnerability of a city is affected by many social problems inherent in the city, and the city's recovery capacity means the city's resources and systems that can overcome and solve these problems. Seoul Design wants to work together to increase the resilience of society so that our daily lives, which have been changed by non-contact, isolation, and social distancing, can be more closely connected.
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The Direction of the Design in The Age of New Normal ‘To Empathize with Costumers and Design New Connections through Design Thinking’
Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social systems that operated through human connections fell into sudden stagnation. The free and flexible daily life of citizens was controlled and limited, and the operating speed of the existing system was significantly lowered, increasing the inconvenience and difficulties of citizens. In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis that no one expected and could not prepare for, members of society are showing some results by designing and implementing devices that can promote social connection in order to break through the disconnection and resulting inefficiency. It is necessary to think about the impact of these attempts on the lives of citizens and the sustainability of these connections. -
New Challenges in City Design to Post-COVID
At a time when the world is thinking about the form of cities to come after Corona, we need to think about how cities should be constructed from a more comprehensive perspective. In addition to the challenges triggered by the coronavirus, the problem of climate change, which must be approached from a particularly long-term perspective, is an area that cannot be prevented or treated, and is a topic that needs to be found through continuous problem-solving, dialogue, and discussion. How should we respond to the problem of climate change that all cities face in the future and must solve in the long term? We would like to discuss six issues on climate change to be announced at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26). -
Generative Social Distance Design: The Optimisation of Building Layouts for COVID-19
Social Distancing Lab Project I would like to talk about the ‘Social Distance Research Institute’ project, which ended about three months ago. Former Senator Ted. Kennedy said, “What divides us pales in comparison to what unites us.” As I worked on a technical research project centered on isolating people during an epidemic, I personally hoped that the shared experience could revitalize the community and rekindle a sense of social cohesion. What is social distancing and how does it affect transmission? The prevailing view of the modern scientific community is that maintaining human-to-human distance is an important factor in reducing the rate of respiratory cross-contamination. The principle of air transmission is that droplets are emitted when people talk to each other or cough, and if people who are within 2 meters of each other inhale it, it is easy to be directly infected with the virus. Therefore, reducing the distance between people increases the risk of infection, and almost all countries have been able to directly reduce the number of deaths by introducing social distancing measures. These statistical data indicate that social distancing measures were effective in reducing the number of confirmed deaths, which is a result showing that social distancing is a key response to the spread of COVID-19. COVID-19 has had a huge impact on the global economy, not just on human life.
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Public design for people, cooperative public design
Design has always evolved as a meaningful means to achieve an objective or a part that is required in the society. Currently, active efforts are being made to resolve the issues of economy, environment and safety through design. In the recent times where we are transcending the era of industrialization to usher in the era of sustainability, design that improves the competitive industrial products is beginning to contribute to our society as design that improves public values as a part of the strategy to resolve problems from the perspective that design is changing in line with the demand of the society. ‘Public design’ is playing a leading role at the center, and from now on, 'design' will resolve a considerable number of issues that our society will face, and it will be making various contributions as a cultural pillar of life. -
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. -
Impact Business Design for Social Ventures
Partner of starting social ventures, Sopoong When we face certain problems in our daily life or when social problems arise, the government solves them, or non-profit organizations and companies solve them. Someone has to pay attention to the problem and develop and disseminate a solution. Can the government do all this? Problems can be solved by institutions and policies, or they can be solved by products and services. It can be a public service, or it can be a product or service that needs to be paid for. I would like to think about the ‘company’, which is the entity that makes these products and services.