Culture ministry opens public design festival at 230 sites nationwide

The culture ministry said Thursday it will hold the Public Design Festival 2026 from Oct. 23 to Nov. 1 at Culture Station Seoul 284 and 230 public design hubs nationwide, more than double the 101 hubs registered in 2022 and the largest edition of the fifth annual event.

The hubs are facilities and spaces run by local governments, companies, agencies and organizations that have used public design to solve problems of daily life. Among them are a community center in Seoul's Gangnam District dedicated to single-person households, an art-specialized public library in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province, and a cultural space built under an unused railway section in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province. Sixty-one of the hubs will run 46 participatory programs, including guided design tours in Cheongju and an urban walk in Seogwipo on Jeju Island.

The festival opens Oct. 23 at Culture Station Seoul 284 with an awards ceremony for the 2026 Korea Public Design Awards, where 17 winning works will be honored, 14 in the project category and three in research. The presidential grand prize goes to a living-lab project in Yongsan District, Seoul, in which residents, district officials and police worked together on safety-design solutions for Hangang-ro-dong, an area troubled by noise, illegal dumping and parking shortages.

Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Choe Hwi-young said public design is increasingly about changing how people experience everyday life. "I hope this festival, held together with hubs across the country, will connect regions with daily life and give more people a chance to feel the value of public design," he said.

The festival will also feature forums and other programs online and offline.