"Public Design Festival" Opens Oct. 23, Bringing Public Design Celebrations to 230 Locations Nationwide

"Public Design Connecting Communities and Everyday Life" theme
46 public participation programs at 61 hubs nationwide

A public design festival will be held at 230 locations nationwide, exploring how design can address local and everyday challenges.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, together with the Korea Craft & Design Foundation, announced on October 22 that it will hold the Public Design Festival 2026 from October 23 to November 1 at Cultural Station Seoul 284 and 230 locations nationwide.

Now in its fifth year, the festival is themed "Public Design Connecting Communities and Everyday Life." Through a range of exhibitions, hands-on programs and forums, it will highlight the role of public design in connecting the digital and physical worlds, people and places, and addressing everyday challenges.

The festival's main feature, the "Public Design Hubs," has more than doubled from 101 locations in 2022 to 230 this year, making it the largest edition to date. "Public Design Hubs" are facilities and spaces run by local governments, companies, institutions and organizations that put the value of public design into practice to address everyday challenges. Participants include the country's first community space exclusively for single-person households, the Single-Person Household Community Center in Gangnam-gu, Seoul; Uijeongbu Art Library, a public library specializing in art, in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province; and Osong Seonha Maru in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, which transformed unused space beneath railway tracks into a cultural venue.

At 61 of the hubs, 46 public participation programs will be held. Highlights include the Public Design Tour in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province; Art Walk in the City Center in Seogwipo, Jeju; and the Climate Change Urban Regeneration Project Re:Poly (RE) in Gwangju, South Jeolla Province. Hands-on programs tailored to different age groups, including children, teenagers and older adults, will also be offered.

Events discussing the future of public design are also on the program. The Public Design Forum, to be held on October 29 at JCC Art Center in Seoul, will bring together 12 Korean and international experts, including Richard Soo, founder of TEDxShanghai; Professor Fabrizio Nevola of the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom; Lee Hyang-eun, an executive at LG Electronics; and Bang Jeong-hyeon, head of the Design Center at Korea Railroad Corporation. Under the theme "Digital Technology and Public Design: New Ways of Experiencing," they will discuss how digital technology is changing public spaces and citizens' experiences.

Other events include the Public Design Lab, where teams from eight universities nationwide will test ideas for solving everyday problems in real-world settings; academic events; Saessak Market, a children's resource-circulation market; and "PechaKucha: Meet the Designers," held in collaboration with the Embassy of Switzerland in the Republic of Korea. Online, a public design campaign linked to Naver Happybean Good Action and a mobile check-in event featuring public design hubs nationwide will take place.

The 2026 Korea Public Design Awards ceremony will also be held at Artio, Cultural Station Seoul 284, on the festival's opening day, October 23. This year's grand prize, the President's Award, goes to the "Hangangno-dong Community Safety Design Project through the Resident Participation Living Lab 'Yongyong Lab'" in Yongsan-gu, Seoul.

Recipients of the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Award include the project to create the Children's Room for Tomorrow at Cheonan Dujeong Library; the Mindungsan Place Branding and Landmark Development Project in Jeongseon; and the "It's Good to Live a Long Life" project to promote a culture of safety-information design. The winning works will be on display through November 1 in conjunction with the exhibition "Designing Care" at Cultural Station Seoul 284.

"Public design has recently expanded to include transforming people's everyday experiences," said Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Choi Hwi-young. "I hope this festival will connect communities with everyday life and give more people the opportunity to experience the value of public design."

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