Public design of Seoul case study - focusing on park creation Public Administration Issues in Urban Policy Prof. Kim HunMin 0578213 이동하 0978331 조연주 0978324 정예빈 0678067 김해람 Table of Contents I. Introduction II. Methodology III. International Trend in Park design 1. Nature 2. People 3. Accessibility IV. The histories of parks creation project that in Seoul V. Successful urban parks in Seoul metropolitan area 1. Paris Park 2. Yeouido Park 3. Seounyudo Park- Contemporary Sensation 4. Haneul Park (Sky Park)-the revival of Nanjido VI. Conclusion 1. Parks currently built now 2. The elements that parks in Seoul should have References I. Introduction We will look into the park composition policies in Seoul metropolitan area. Korea has developed economically so fast and Seoul was the center of such development. Land price has risen up and we felt the space was always not enough even for housing or offices. The most important value for the land usage was efficiency. The city went gray and packed with skyscrapers. Metropolitan area has expanded, which made more difficult to reach green area. Seoul citizens are enjoying affluent lives than ever before. We became to consider quality of lives as well as wealth. People got to have more leisure time and they wish to utilize it meaningfully. Citizens started to demand more green area to stay for their leisure. According to the Statistics of Seoul city government in 2008, the area of park per capita is 5m2. It’s almost only two thirds of recommended extent by UN affiliated organization FAO, which is 9m2. Elective local government officers listened to the demand of citizens more carefully to get citizens’ support. Seoul city government and Gu-offices(구청) are building up parks around housing area more and more. Especially Seoul city government proceeds Design Seoul projects and tries to repair ecological axis in Seoul metropolitan area. Many parks are being constructed fast and simultaneously. Some of them received favorable evaluation. Sometimes, however, we can see inconsistency between projects and notice elective officers focuses on making parks in very short time for just looking better. We need standards and basic concepts to create parks, which can enable citizens to feel intimacy to their city and community. We research the successful stories in foreign countries about making parks and find out what value they pursued for parks construction. We will also study Seoul cases containing what they did well or bad in specific situations of Seoul. And the direction or philosophy will be suggested to create better parks. II. Methodology First of all, we need to define what the park is. The definition of park could be various (Table 1). It could contain urban forest, tree-lined street, stream area, green fields in School campuses or mountains and hills in urban area. We will set the limit of park definition into urban forest. Especially, green field nearby streams is important but they will be excluded for detailed and specific research focusing on urban forest, which means Cheongae-cheon or Yangjae-cheon will not be covered in this research. We will do documentary research with academic articles and landscaping architecture magazines and also research local government web pages to find out what is world trend of park construction in foreign countries. We will also look for what projects have done in Seoul and current projects, which are in process in Seoul in city government websites and domestic articles. Institute Urban Forest Definition USDA Forest Urban National Forests within 80km from city center with population over Service 1 million Space a part of artificial environment offering habitat for various wild DeGraaf(1974) animals in cities Shafer & Moeller Part of urban ecosystem consists of water, soil, wild animals nearby dense (1979) human residential area. Urban Forest in the US occupies 69 million acres, which contains street Glegg(1982) trees, school forest, urban parks, stream park, cemetery park and so forth. Miller From small community in rural area to metropolitan area with dense population. Urban forest near urban area with plants. (1988, 1997) Japan Ministry of Agriculture, Within 20km from city area with population over 100 thousand Forestry and Fisheries(1987) Japan MAFF green area difficult to secure consecutive existence (1999) Forestation Forest related to Urban environment protect and used for recreation Center(1983) under development pressure from the city. Japan Ministry of huge extent of forest near city or city suburb functions to protect wild construction animals and improve atmosphere of the cities. guideline(1993) Japan Urban Urban forest to protect wild animals and plants habitat Park Law Ordinances(1993) Korea Forest Forest located in the city or gun according to administrative distribution Service(1997) Forest and field in city according to administrative categorization in YongHa Kim limited sense of the term (1998) Trees and forest spread out of the city according to administrative categorization in broad sense of the term ByeongSeol Open space and Green area created naturally or artificially with plants, soil Byeon et al. and water in urban area (2002) revised designated by National land usage plan law article 30 (국토의계획및이용에 urban park law 관한법률제 30 조) to protect nature environment in urban area, improve city scenery and prevent pollution and disaster (2003) Table 1: Park Definitions in Laws source: The Policy Improvement for Urban Forests III. International Trend in Park design While many countries have struggled with bad economic and social circumstances during many years, they kept focusing on welfare of citizens. In this situation, construction of park is one of the most important welfare policies. The number of people who enjoy leisure time in their holidays has constantly increased. Except for nature parks in suburban area, artificial parks in the center of the city are also required by various people working and living in the city, from the poor to rich, young to older people. Ruth suggested three international trends for ideal park construction in urban area in his article, which are Nature, People and Accessibility (Ruth.v.Rusell 2005). And we will use these major trend keywords as a framework to analyze parks in Seoul. Figure 1. standards to analyze ideal parks 1. Nature Many parks are constructed focusing on protecting and using nature resources like trees or a damp area around river. Contrast to the past when most parks are made by demolishing nature ground and then filling it with artificial things, nowadays, parks are constructed protecting natural resources. When parks are designed, protecting nature is considered as the most important part of design. Eco-friendly is also major concept in managing and construction of park. Not only well protected nature, but building facilities running by environmentally friendly energy like, sun and wind energy is also important trends.(이훈범, 2006) National park pursues protecting nature. If we just want to protect nature from the people, closing the park would be the most effective way to protect nature. To improve practical using of park by opening to people, not just protecting them from people, parks need environment-friendly structure. Here are some desirable park location standards as follows. The first one is closeness from neighborhood: linear green spaces designed to be accessible for people on foot and by bicycles. The second one is recycling unused or underutilized built environments as linear parks: for example, railroad beds, abandoned roads, utility pole rights of way, the underneath of highway overpasses, etc. In summary, protecting small size of green area in park and using environmental friendly facilities are major stream in world class parks. 2. People People are major factor when we consider park formation. The most important goal of park should be increasing welfare of people who enjoy it. This concept is related to people’s lives and includes quality of urban life, special needs of young generation, leisure time, demographic and cultural diversity (Ruth. V. Rusell, 2005). Park should function as tools to improve quality of life positively. We tend to think of parks as decorations to make landscape look better. Parks should be a place for recreation of people who use there rather than decoration. Parks can contain programs and events to gather people and form community. For example, Central park, one of the most famous parks around world, is located in middle of the New York City and it stretches north from mid-town for over fifty blocks and is the size of a small European kingdom. There are millions of joggers running around the park. And also many museums and other facilities in the park improve life quality and happiness of citizens. The park is customer oriented and users create new way to use of park actively. In other words, people participate in creating park together. Central park, in New York city, shows how park can increases social welfare of people well. 3. Accessibility In the past, parks were located in the suburban area reflecting an historical philosophy of parks as a social service. Is it still viable priority? It shows that recently parks are being constructed in the inner city. While land acquires for future new parks to take place inexpensive and convenient. For example, Buttes Chaumon park in Paris which is located in the center of the city, provides the pleasure of life, place to gather people and clean air pollution of the city. Paris citizens tried to change the place where had been filled with trash to the park filled with flowers, birds, trees and people who enjoy reading books and chatting each other. This kind of park makes view of gray and dark city better and people tried to find any place for green so the deserted and barren cities can be turn to the green room for citizen although this is not easy to find out.