Busan Workation Hub Center Selected as Winner in Interior Category at 'iF Design Award 2024'

Public-Private Cooperation Recognized by Global Design at World's Most Prestigious Design Competition

Attracting Resident Population... Highly Praised for Establishing and Operating Hub Centers and Enhancing Public Interest

Busan City announced that the 'Busan Workation Hub Center' was selected as a winner in the interior category (office space) at Germany's 'iF Design Award 2024.'

Busan-style Workation Hub Center awarded the main prize at the 2024 iF Design Award.

The 'iF Design Award' is the most prestigious international design award organized by 'iF International Forum Design,' an independent design institution located in Hanover, Germany, with the longest history.

Along with Germany's Red Dot Design Award and the United States' IDEA, it is considered one of the world's top three design awards.

In this award, approximately 11,000 entries from 72 countries competed across nine categories: ▲Product ▲Package ▲Communication ▲Concept ▲Interior ▲Architecture ▲Service Design ▲User Experience (UX) ▲User Interface (UI). Winners were selected based on evaluations by a jury of 132 experts from various countries.

The 'Busan Workation Hub Center (24th floor of Asti Hotel, Dong-gu)' is the core workspace of the Busan-type workation activation project, selected in 2022 as part of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety's Local Extinction Response Fund. It consists of ▲a refreshing view ▲independent workspaces ▲phone booths ▲meeting rooms ▲event lounge ▲minibar, among other facilities.

This was the result of the city seeking advice from global companies with workation experience such as Google and Naver and conducting a demand survey targeting domestic companies before promoting the project, to create user-centered differentiated workspace infrastructure.

Since its opening in February last year and after system adjustments, the 'Busan-type Workation' project began full-scale operation in April. The hub center quickly gained popularity, surpassing 1,200 users in less than a year of operation.

Most users belong to companies headquartered in the Seoul metropolitan area, with the majority in their 20s and 30s working in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector, and inquiries about establishing Busan branches are continuing.

The 'iF International Forum Design,' which organizes the award, evaluated that “the Busan Workation Center is composed of an open sea view and an efficient indoor workspace layout, enhancing work efficiency as well as providing a space for users to recharge.”

In particular, an official stated, “The creation and operation of the hub center to attract living populations in depopulated areas as an alternative to population extinction, securing publicness, received high praise.”

This is expected to become a new milestone for workation, which balances work and rest as a new work trend, and for attracting living populations.

Mayor Park Hyung-jun, who showed special affection from the site selection to the spatial composition of the 'Busan Workation Hub Center,' said, “This selection is a meaningful award recognizing Busan as a workation city in the era of city branding where brands create value. Nowadays, as the public compass role in shaping the cityscape becomes increasingly important, our city has been considering spatial planning from the early stages of policy formulation and expanding cooperation with the private sector with excellent imagination and creativity to create a more diverse Busan. The representative space of this is the 'Busan Workation Hub Center.'”

Heide Architects Office (CEO Kim Seok-hoon) and architect Professor Jeong Seul-ah, who were in charge of the center’s spatial planning and design, also said, “It was a valuable experience to contribute to revitalizing depopulated areas by attracting living populations and creating the Busan brand as a workation city favorable for businesses.”

Mayor Park also stated, “Through this international design award, we will do our best to respond to the increasing demand for workation by branding Busan as a globally recognized workation city and promoting strategic global marketing, as well as attracting key domestic and foreign companies.”