Seoul Design
International Forum
서울디자인국제포럼

The value of experience design that drives city brands

We establish relationships with brands through certain experiences, and all people are connected to brands. A brand, in itself, signifies the internal standard and pillar of external practice, and branding refers to proving the reasons for existence and the uniqueness of the subject, creating and protecting principles and standards, and practicing these to live independently within a relationship.

Design in the Era of Disruptive Paradigm Shift

In today’s world, we’re facing a rapid paradigm shift. This presentation focuses on the role and significance of design in the midst of such changes and the future direction of urban public design. My personal experiences on paradigm shifts in the realm of design come into play in assessing the past and the present. The presentation also aims to facilitate the exchange of ideas on how we should change and adapt in the face of the paradigm shift.

What is the significance of the brand called Seoul to you?

Portland, New York, or Berlin Personally, I have never been to Portland. However, since a few years ago, lifestyles that is known as ‘YOLO life’, and ‘Kinfolk life’ have emerged, and Portland, was mentioned as one of the representative cities. Portland was perceived to be a city that acknowledges open mindsets and lives, as well as one that is filled with a feeling of relaxation while being a little slow, and not a city that is artificially made and attempts are made for improvements and change. Of course, this is the result of successful city branding. This is why I am treasuring the Portland mask that I received as a gift from an acquaintance who recently visited Portland. Another keyword that is currently being mentioned as much as ‘design’ is ‘branding’. Branding is a topic that is widely used and with importance almost at the level that it can be applied from branding products to corporations, and from individuals to cities and countries. This proves that it is not something that simply ends after having experienced and consumed it, but there is a growing interest and understanding about who I am, what I am consuming or experiencing, and for what purpose. Thus, the example of Portland that I just mentioned before is very strong even if it is a small experience. Our experience in recalling a certain image, brand or a representative spot immediately after hearing the name of a certain city like New York, Berlin, Milano, Davos, or London is the result of city branding (whether we are conscious of it or not). Seoul Design International Forum that was held through Zoom on March 31st was both timely and appropriate in that ‘city brand’ was chosen as the design paradigm. In the forum that was held under the theme of ‘Design trend and direction of policy’, ‘Value of Experience Design in City Brand’, in particular, (Speaker: CEO Choi So-hyun of Perception) triggers us to think about what is required for ‘city branding’ while pointing out the context and meaning of city brand to us, in the current times, where there is a deluge of ‘branding’.

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.

Development of Participatory Universal Design Culture

The Center operates civic participation groups to consider the “viewpoint of the weak” or the “viewpoint of the citizens.” The first civic participation group recruited last year monitored eight public facilities in Seoul, including Donuimun Museum Village, Oil Tank Culture Park, and the Seoul Museum of History. The second civic participation group this year is visiting facilities that are close to the people of Seoul, such as the Sejong-daero Walkway in Gwanghwamun, Jongmyo Shrine, Yejang Park, and the Seoul Museum of Craft Art. The civic participation group uploads posts about the benefits or improvements that are needed for each place they monitor on social media or blogs to share information with the people.

Diffusion of Universal Design Culture: Seoul Universal Design Award

The SMG was the first public institution to promote industries related to universal design by establishing the Seoul Universal Design Award (SUDA) and holding its first public contest in 2021.

Accessibility Information Map for the Mobility Disadvantaged Persons

Cities comprise artificial or non-artificial combinations of countless roads (lines), facilities (points), and spaces (planes). Living in such cities, we find the most efficient and fastest way to reach a facility or space. When driving a car, we use a navigation device that informs us of the optimal or shortest route considering real-time traffic volume information and road types (narrow and curved or wide and straight roads). When walking, we can use pedestrian guides on commercial maps such as NAVER Map, Kakao Map and Google Map. When using pedestrian guides, people often prefer the fastest and shortest route, even if there are steep slopes or height differences caused by stairs. If there is no difficulty in walking, slopes and surface materials that may cause inconvenience are obstacles that can be overcome.

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.

Increased Happiness Index: Reduced Stress With a Change of Design.

Korea is the Republic of Stress. According to the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs in 2016, over 90% of adults are stressed in their everyday life. In the 2016 Seoul Survey, over 53.5% of Seoul citizens responded they felt stressed in the past two weeks. As such, stress is becoming increasingly generalized and chronic in the lives of contemporary people, but there is no definite measure to avoid stress. Based on this idea, the SMG planned “stress-free design” as a part of the social problem-solving design in 2016. By breaking away from the conventional method of improving the physical environment and providing material support, the SMG attempted a new public policy to take care of mental health. The purpose is to lower stress faced in each life cycle and situation and bring healthy life to individuals and society by improving factors that hinder the mental health of citizens through design.

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.

The future of smart office, after COVID-19

The spread of the corona virus in 2020 has caused rapid changes in work patterns due to the normalization of working at home. Although there is a realistic limit to building a work environment with a specific concept in an unprepared situation, efforts are being made to respond to these changes in their own way, and each company needs time to compromise to create a safer work environment. It is time for designers to make efforts to find the interface between a space that harmoniously connects people and a space that prioritizes safety. Although it is necessary to change the philosophy of space itself, it is expected that human attempts to challenge the limits will continue.

Smart Home's Directions in Untact Society

Due to the contagiousness of the COVID-19 virus, the number of infected patients is increasing, and the resulting decline in social interactions is leading to a global economic crisis. Social distancing means that face-to-face contact with others is considered dangerous, and recommends staying at home as much as possible and refraining from outside activities such as going to work, eating out and shopping. The crisis of COVID-19, which is ongoing, is urging the transition to a non-face-to-face culture and society. Housing in the non-face-to-face society needs to be redefined with a new concept and function. Nowadays, when we think that a smart home can offer the possibility of an alternative, we understand it as a house that can provide convenience in our lives based on cutting-edge information and communication technology. However, this definition of a smart home is rather clichéd and indistinct, and I don't think it accurately describes the essence of a smart home. In the 1990s, there was already an intelligent home, and in the 2000s, the term ubiquitous home was used. In the 2010s, the smart home appeared, and they are all defined and used with almost the same concept. If the “homes” mentioned above have passed without becoming reality, can a smart home, which is being developed with the same concept, be an alternative in this era?

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

City for Disabilities going for tour and culture

From the point of view of mobility-impaired wheelchair users, barrier-free design and universal design are quite different. As Korea is heading towards becoming an aging society, it is expected that the demand for accessibility will increase. The gap must be filled through the application of universal design. Urban life for the mobility-impaired The way in which the mobility-impaired people use the city is very different from that of the non-disabled people. Typically, there is a difference between infrastructure and daily needs. Because disabled people using wheelchairs have difficulty using public transportation, it is common either to use an adaptive taxi that can accommodate a wheelchair or to reduce the frequency of going out. Therefore, mobility is limited, and long-distance movement is impossible, so connection between regions is significantly reduced. Most mobility-impaired people have a great fear of moving out of their place of residence. There are also differences in the way they move. Many older subway stations do not have elevators because the anti-discrimination laws did not apply in the past. In fact, it's only been a few years since wheelchair users have actually been able to ride the subway since related laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) started to take effect. Stairs were removed, escalators were installed, and facilities were installed to allow wheelchair users to move between floors. In addition, there is a problem in that information about the location display of the disabled toilet or elevator is not properly given due to lack of awareness of the versatility of the information acquisition method. This is usually a problem caused by the fact that supplier-oriented guide signs are made, and people with mobility difficulties, travelers with language barriers, and tourists with difficulties feel the inconvenience.

Challenges and Tasks of City of SEOUL

There are numerous definitions of universal design by experts and scholars. Among the definitions, I think The University of Buffalo defines universal design best: "A design process that enables and empowers a diverse population by improving human performance, health and wellness, and social participation.” Universal design is not a result, but rather a process of making. In this context, through various projects, the city of Seoul is implementing universal design that involves the public, solves everyday problems, and ensures that no one is marginalized. Each and All, between individuality and versatility, how can a design for a particular person become a design for all?

Universal Design Policy in Seoul

Seoul's design policy has been in place since 2007. The city’s design policy has been trying to make a cleaner and more sophisticated city, through measures such as improving signage and reorganizing facilities. From 2008 to 2010, the Seoul Design Olympics were held, and in 2010, Seoul was selected as the World Design Capital. For the past 10 years, the Seoul Metropolitan Government has implemented policies focusing on facilities for the disabled through its building certification system for the convenient city life of a wide variety of citizens. With the design policy based on these legal standards, the comfort of citizens has been improved, but it centered on the disabled, and there were cases where public in general was not taken into consideration. This was part of the background for Seoul introducing universal design. The composition of Seoul citizens is also diversifying. As of 2016, the elderly population in Seoul was about 1.28 million, 12.5% ​​of the total population, and by 2027, one in five people is expected to belong to that category. As the number of foreign visitors and the multicultural population continues to increase, this is also becoming an important consideration in Seoul's policies. The diversity of citizens requires more consideration, and Seoul introduced universal design to respect the diversity of all citizens.

Universal Design in the Era of Digital Transformation - Creating a World for All Digital Transformation for Universal Design - Inclusive World

Unlike in the past, the concept of 'disability' is today recognized in accordance with aspects of information accessibility and social context. Many problems can be solved through technology. If accessibility is not considered continuously while creating a new environment, people will feel new disabilities, and to prevent this, accessibility, interaction, and cultural change must be considered. Microsoft's mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Just as in the past Microsoft made it easy for people to access information and the Internet through PCs, its direction now is to help people achieve more than ever before through technology. In terms of increasing the accessibility of information by providing software services to all organizations and everyone, it can be seen that this is in line with the purpose of universal design. When we approach the concept of disability, we think of individual health and physical condition first, but disability differs from general interactions and does not represent physical characteristics or health conditions. Of the many people with disabilities, 70% are visually impaired. In addition, in the United States, about 26,000 people each year have a permanent disability due to bodily injury, and some suffer temporary discomfort due to injury. Therefore, since disability is not determined and applicable by physical conditions, but can be experienced temporarily or contextually, design should be developed and services should be prepared according to these situational criteria. There are over 1 billion people with disabilities on the planet. On top of this, as we are entering an aging society, in the future, more people may face a situation in which they need to work in a different environment or access information. Therefore, accessibility should be considered from a long-term perspective. Microsoft has already developed accessibility and high-contrast screen features in Windows since the early days of Windows in 1990, and will continue to do so in the future.