[Asia Economy Reporter Onyu Lim] The Seoul Metropolitan Government is seeking the 2nd term of Ma-eul Architects to discover spaces in our neighborhoods.
On the 20th, Seoul announced that it will publicly recruit the 2nd term of Ma-eul Architects this year to actively expand the Ma-eul Architect system, which was first implemented last year. The public recruitment will be held until the 20th of next month, targeting local architects who currently live or work in the neighborhood, or have a connection to the neighborhood such as spending their childhood there, prioritizing those who have an attachment to the neighborhood.
The Seoul Ma-eul Architect system is a regionally customized development model of the Seoul Public Architect system, which has been implemented since 2011 to enhance the quality of public architecture. While the Public Architect system utilizes experts for each project to improve the professionalism of public architecture projects, the Ma-eul Architect system is designed to discover place-centered space improvement projects reflecting local characteristics.
A Seoul city official explained, "Ma-eul Architects play a role in proactively reviewing major local issues by reflecting residents' opinions, and incorporating them into the project plans of Seoul and autonomous districts to establish an integrated and continuous space improvement project promotion system."
The main roles of Ma-eul Architects include ▲consultation on major issues related to architecture and spatial environment ▲overall planning of local activities such as home repairs and village activists ▲acting as coordinators for public and private projects and promoting pilot projects ▲creating village publicness maps through field surveys and discovering policy projects ▲raising citizen awareness for community improvement and architectural culture promotion ▲and supporting other projects to enhance local spatial welfare.
Seoul expects that with the implementation of the Ma-eul Architect system, the practical achievements of the Public Architect system, which is currently focused on public architecture, will be further expanded to ▲balanced improvement of living environments at the village level ▲realization of proactive spatial welfare ▲and providing a good opportunity to induce social contribution by experts in various fields, thereby granting experts social responsibility and pride.
Kim Tae-hyung, Director of the Seoul Urban Space Improvement Division, said, “Based on the experience of the first phase of the system operation, we will strive to promote practical neighborhood environment improvements that residents can directly feel.”
Meanwhile, the 1st term Ma-eul Architects discovered 363 unit projects through the creation of village maps in 25 autonomous districts, and prepared 8 pilot projects through active cooperation with 5 autonomous districts. The 2nd term Ma-eul Architects will lay the foundation for the full-scale implementation of the system, including strengthening cooperation with autonomous districts and expanding the regions.
In particular, it is expected to complement the establishment of basic data for policy formulation by discovering not only the physical environment of the region but also its humanities and geographical values, and to prepare detailed implementation plans according to place characteristics such as history and terrain. Seoul plans to support Ma-eul Architects to operate in a wider range of regions and fields by recruiting various experts.
Seoul plans to expand the Ma-eul unit spatial welfare projects across all 424 neighborhoods in 25 autonomous districts throughout the city by 2022, implementing them in stages.
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