Recommend Outstanding Public Design Examples Experienced in Everyday Life
Outstanding Examples Selected Across 6 Project Categories, New Local Government Category Established
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, together with the Korea Craft & Design Foundation, is holding the ‘2023 Korea Public Design Awards’ competition through May 4.
Now in its 16th year, the ‘Korea Public Design Awards’ is a leading competition in the public design field that selects and widely promotes outstanding examples that citizens can directly experience and relate to.
Anyone can participate, and outstanding examples are selected from public design projects and research carried out within the past three years, respectively.
In the project category, outstanding examples are selected across a total of six fields of public design that citizens can relate to in their daily lives: ▲Public Design That Enhances Everyday Safety ▲Public Design for Everyone ▲Public Design That Adds Everyday Convenience ▲Public Design That Elevates Everyday Quality ▲Public Design Campaigns ▲Public Design Administration.
In the research category, research that presents innovative potential for development based on expertise for the promotion of public design is selected. In particular, the Special Award—established with the support of the late Victor Margolin, a world-renowned design scholar, to advance Korean design and promote academic research—is presented to research that offers recommendations on the future direction and role of public design.
This year, the scope of the competition has been expanded, and in addition to the project and research categories, a new local government category has been established, with the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Award to be presented. The plan is to select local governments that have actively worked to establish a foundation for promoting public design within their regions through such measures as public design ordinances, the formulation of promotion plans, and the operation of committees.
In addition, this year’s competition poster was inspired by universal design; by presenting a poster that uses color schemes as seen not only by people with normal color vision but also by those with deuteranomaly (green color weakness) and tritanomaly (blue color weakness), it expresses the characteristic of public design that lets people indirectly experience and empathize with the perspective of others.
In this competition, experts, companies, academic societies, and others from various fields can recommend outstanding public design projects and research (March 20–April 6), and anyone—including individuals and local governments that have carried out public design–related projects and research—can enter directly (April 24–May 4).
The total prize money is 69 million won: ▲In the project category, 11 awards will be presented, including one Prime Minister’s Award (Grand Prize, 15 million won prize) and one Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Award (Top Excellence Award, 10 million won prize); ▲In the research category, 3 awards will be presented, including one Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Award (Top Excellence Award, 10 million won prize) and one KCDF President’s Award (Excellence Award, 3 million won prize); ▲In the local government category, one Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Award (Top Excellence Award, 10 million won prize) will be presented.
Recommendations and submissions of outstanding examples can be made through the Public Design Comprehensive Information System (publicdesign.kr), and more detailed information about the competition can be found on the KCDF website (www.kcdf.or.kr) and the Public Design Comprehensive Information System.