"Tastes Become the Market"... Seoul Design Week Opens on the 14th, Connecting 150 Spots Across 5 Districts

Held Across DDP and All of Seoul from October 14 to 25

Connecting 150 Design Spots in Five Districts

Seventy-Nine Brands Exhibit by "Lifestyles" Instead of Product Types

Featuring Domestic and International Experts Including Hyunjoon Yoo and Maria Porro

Are you a "Meticulous Homemaker" or a "Quiet Dreamer"? Or perhaps, you are closer to a "Joyful Companion" or a "Kindhearted Gourmet."

Last year at Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP), the '2025 Seoul Design Week' event took place. This year, the event will expand its stage beyond DDP to encompass all of Seoul, including Seongsu, Yeonhui, Seochon, and Apgujeong, starting from the 14th. Seoul Design Foundation

This year, at the entrance to Seoul Design Week, you will not find familiar labels like chairs, lights, or dishes. Instead, you will encounter people. The first questions are about how you rest at home, with whom and what you eat, and which items you want to fill your daily life with. In other words, the aim is to interpret design through lifestyles, not just through the shapes of objects.

On October 6, the Seoul Metropolitan Government and Seoul Design Foundation announced that "2026 Seoul Design Week" will be held across Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) and throughout Seoul from October 14 to 25. The theme this year is "The Design Recipe." Rather than simply assembling exhibitions, markets, and lectures inside DDP, the event is scattering design into the everyday life of Seoul—into neighborhoods such as Seongsu, Yeonhui, Seochon, and Apgujeong.

The first place to put your taste to the test is the DDP Design Fair. Seventy-nine domestic lifestyle brands are divided not by product type but into four personae. At the "Market for Meticulous Homemakers," you will find items that help bring order to the home, while the "Market for Quiet Dreamers" showcases brands providing moments of rest. The "Joyful Companion" provides goods for spending time with others, and the "Kindhearted Gourmet" shapes a marketplace centered on valuing each meal.

It is a clever new way of organizing things. Gone are the days of fairs arranging cups with cups and chairs with chairs. Even the same teacup may represent housekeeping to one person and relaxation to another. The Design Fair, therefore, encourages visitors to choose not only "what to buy" but first and foremost "how they want to live."

A view of last year’s ‘DDP Design Fair.’ This year, 79 domestic lifestyle brands will participate, organizing the exhibition hall not by product type but according to consumers’ tastes and lifestyles, such as ‘Meticulous Homemaker’ and ‘Quiet Dreamer.’ Seoul Design Foundation

Products designed by as-yet-unknown designers will also be included in the same space. Over 100 university students from Seoul National University, Ewha Womans University, University of Seoul, Hongik University, and Kyung Hee University have formed 20 teams to solve real-world challenges alongside companies such as Hyundai Motor, Oxfam, Goobne, the Korean Red Cross, and Davich Optical. The process itself—from ideas usually confined to classrooms to their development into products, spaces, and brands—becomes an exhibition.

If you look deeper, you will find exhibitions focused more on the design "process" than the final "result." "Studio Silcheon" displays not only what domestic and international design studios have created, but also the trial and error involved along the way. At "Collective Seoul," you can encounter 10 design collectives based in Seoul, and "ItAliens: Strange Italy" introduces Italian industrial design to the city.

Food likewise becomes a material for design. The Spanish food design studio FONDO’s exhibition demonstrates how ingredients do not simply end up on a plate but are reimagined into new experiences and sensations. Such scenes reveal how design is slowly moving away from the old definition of simply making things more beautiful on the outside.

There are also sessions that dissect design in words. On the 15th, architect Hyunjoon Yoo will talk about "Redefining Seoul’s Landscape," exploring the spatial possibilities of the city. Panelists including special adviser Ji-Hyun Lee, Park Sohee, CEO of Hinok, Kim Byunggi, CEO of Fritz Company, and Park Jaehyun, CEO of Seoul Morning Coffee Club, will discuss how new lifestyles and brands emerge in a city like Seoul.

Last year, the special exhibition "Sitting Seoul" at Seoul Design Week showcased the sensibilities of designers active in Seoul and the trends in contemporary furniture design through chairs of various forms and materials. Seoul Design Foundation

On the 18th, attention turns beyond Seoul. Maria Porro, Chairperson of the world’s largest furniture and design fair, Salone del Mobile Milano, along with Mauro Porcini, Chief Design Officer (CDO) at Samsung Electronics, and Anna Barbara, Dean of POLI.design, will visit Seoul. They will discuss how Italian design became a global taste, and what the world now expects from K-design.

The biggest change in this year’s event is that it extends beyond DDP’s walls. One hundred and fifty design spaces, shops, and studios across five neighborhoods—Dongdaemun, Yeonhui, Seongsu, Seochon, and Apgujeong—have been brought together as the "Seoul Design Road." In Seongsu, "Seoulness" will reinterpret the city’s spaces and daily life, and in Yeonhui, the "Design Open Studio" offers visits to design studios and architectural firms that usually keep their doors closed. Maps will be provided for visitors to find these design spots as they walk through each district.

Last year, the DDP Design Fair attracted about 30,000 paying visitors. This year, instead of everyone seeing exhibitions within one building, the stage has expanded, encouraging people to explore the streets and alleys of Seoul. In effect, Seoul Design Week—which used to treat DDP as its venue—has now begun to treat the city of Seoul itself as the exhibition hall.

Despite how grand the name "Seoul Design Week" may sound, the questions posed this year are surprisingly simple. Which cup will you pick, into which shop will you step, and in which space do you wish to rest? In the end, design might simply be the shape of the choices we make every day, often without much thought or deliberation.

So, you do not need to visit all 150 locations. If you are a "Meticulous Homemaker," choose as a homemaker would; if you are a "Quiet Dreamer," just pick a few places that fit your dreams. The most interesting exhibition space created by this year’s Seoul Design Week is not DDP, but the streets of Seoul—rediscovered as you begin to walk them again for the sake of your own preferences.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.