Seoul Design Week Held for the First Time at 'Metaverse DDP'... Theme: 'Design Reboot'

'Design Seminar' Featuring Expert Speakers in Design, Branding, Virtual Reality... Free Registration Until the 25th
Event Expected to Foster Interaction Between Speakers and Participants Using Gather Town's Video Conferencing Advantages

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The 8th Seoul Design Week, Seoul's representative design festival, will move its stage to the 3D virtual space "Metaverse" and hold a seminar to explore new directions.

On the 18th, the Seoul Design Foundation announced that it will recreate Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) on the representative metaverse platform "Gather Town" and hold the Seoul Design Week Reboot Seminar from the 26th to the 28th. The metaverse is a compound word of "meta," meaning virtual or abstract, and "universe," meaning the real world. It refers to a virtual world where economic, cultural, and social activities are possible through an avatar representing "me" in the virtual space.

This year, under the theme "Design Reboot," the design seminar will feature experts in design, branding, and virtual reality as speakers. It will be a place to reaffirm the identity of design amid the blurring boundaries between fields and the ever-changing environment, society, and culture, and to explore the future direction of Seoul Design Week.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government plans to explore new possibilities for DDP by utilizing the metaverse, which allows communication beyond time and space and is familiar to the MZ generation, and to strengthen its role as a future-oriented design platform. The Seoul Design Foundation will expand and diversify the contact points between Seoul design and citizens by carrying out various projects using the metaverse. It also plans to participate as a key content provider in the future "Metaverse Seoul" to be established by the Seoul Metropolitan Government.

This year’s event will feature eight speakers, including Park Young-ha, Head of Design at Starbucks Korea; Kim Bong-chan, former Head of Design at Hyundai Card; Professor Ko Joo-won, video director of the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics; and artist Kim Chung-jae, who will present over three days. Participation is free through pre-registration. In addition to the seminar, various programs will be operated. Participants can explore various parts of Gather Town’s DDP, where major spaces of the actual DDP are recreated, view exhibitions, and experience the metaverse by leaving memories at photo zones.

Meanwhile, the Seoul Design Foundation plans to open a virtual rooftop park on the DDP rooftop, designed as a rooftop park concept, on the representative domestic metaverse platform "Zepeto" on the 19th, coinciding with the pre-promotion period of Seoul Design Week.