Uijeongbu City, Gyeonggi Province (Mayor Kim Dong-geun) announced on the 31st that the 'Uijeongbu Design Library' to be built within Jandol Culture Park at 693 Sangok-dong has begun construction.
Starting with a feasibility study in 2019, the city has steadily completed preliminary procedures over five years, including central investment review, basic and detailed design, and contracts for construction and electrical work, and officially commenced construction on the 16th.
With a total project cost of 25.2 billion KRW, the library is scheduled to open in December 2025. It will be a building with one basement floor and three above-ground floors (total floor area of 5,435㎡), featuring spaces such as a design materials zone, popup store, community zone, and design creation zone.
The city is recognized as a genuine library city through facilities like the Uijeongbu Art Library and Uijeongbu Music Library, and is attracting attention as a library tourism city visited nationwide.
In particular, the city plans to embody the value of design in the library under the slogans "Designing Imagination," "Designing Everyday Life," and "Designing the City" in the establishment of this design library.
The operational goals of the design library, which will become another symbolic architectural landmark of the city next year, are: ▲ serving as a design research institute for creating new value in Uijeongbu and as a design creation studio for citizens ▲ supporting design management for startup companies ▲ acting as a public platform to support the growth of future design leaders.
To this end, the library plans to offer specialized design programs, plan and operate popup stores in collaboration with social economy enterprises or design companies, and provide creative spaces for design development.
This will go beyond the traditional role of public libraries to realize social value as a public platform, contribute to corporate growth support, and revitalize the local economy, thereby creating new value for Uijeongbu City.
Mayor Kim Dong-geun stated, "The Uijeongbu Design Library will be another new challenge and achievement for Uijeongbu, a genuine library city. Through the design library, we will support the growth of future design leaders. Furthermore, as a design creation studio that transforms citizens' daily lives and the city, we will help citizens grow as individual designers who design their own lives."
As a library city, the city previously signed a "Memorandum of Understanding for Mutual Development and Promotion of Friendly Cooperation" with the University of Seoul and achieved a commitment to mutual cooperation for joint research related to Uijeongbu's library projects.
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