Applications for the '2018 Korea Public Architecture Awards' will be accepted through July 6. The awards seek to identify and honor the contributions of project owners who have worked to create or improve outstanding public buildings, and to share their achievements with everyone.
Since 2007, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has held the Public Architecture Awards each year so that the nation's public buildings—numbering some 200,000 across the country—can break away from uniform, authoritarian design and instead embody dignity and public values that show consideration for residents.
In particular, as it stated in its New Year policy report, this year the Ministry has made enhancing the dignity of public buildings a key policy goal and is developing and pursuing a range of related policies. Accordingly, it has carried out a sweeping overhaul of the Public Architecture Awards, which had until now remained a celebration for ordering agencies and their heads. In addition to the existing selection of outstanding public buildings (the Public Architecture category), the Ministry will separately recognize departments that have achieved innovations in their work to raise the quality of public buildings (the Administrative Innovation category).
The Ministry has also established a new essay contest open to the general public (the Storytelling category), on the themes of 'The good public building I have in mind' or 'The story of a special public building I have experienced.' This provides an opportunity to hear directly from the public about their thoughts on public buildings and to share their value together.
Public buildings such as community service centers, public health centers, and schools serve as living-infrastructure facilities for local residents and as key focal points for urban regeneration. Through this role, they drive change in the surrounding areas and hold ample potential to become excellent tourism resources.
Recognizing the importance of such public buildings, countries overseas such as the United States and the United Kingdom carry out professional architectural planning with sufficient time in the early stages of public building projects. They also establish agencies to comprehensively review the projects being undertaken by each institution, thereby preventing duplicate projects and ensuring high-quality design that responds to residents' needs.
In line with this global trend, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport plans to improve the system so that architectural planning is treated as an important, separate process ahead of design, while also making full use of private-sector experts to strengthen the architectural-planning capabilities of ordering agencies as much as possible.
Park Seung-gi, the Ministry's Director General for Architecture Policy, said, "Through the '2018 Korea Public Architecture Awards,' which brings together the designers involved in creating public buildings and the general public, we expect this to be a good opportunity to rediscover the value of the public buildings that exist throughout our lives, and to share in the sweat and achievements of public project owners who work on the ground amid difficult conditions."
Meanwhile, last year the Grand Prize at the 11th Korea Public Architecture Awards went to the 'Chilbo Youth Cultural Center' in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province. For the 'Chilbo Youth Cultural Center,' the person in charge at the ordering agency drew up design competition guidelines to create a new youth training facility and held a design competition for emerging architects, through which an outstanding design was selected. What stood out in particular was that, even under difficult circumstances—the contractor's on-site representative was replaced three times and the building's use and materials had to be changed—the original design was respected and a high-quality public building was realized through consultation with the designer.