Gyeonggi Province receives President’s Award in 16th Korea Design Awards

Gyeonggi Province credited for enacting ordinance on environmental design for first time in nation

◇ Recognized for its design efforts to prevent crimes, Gyeonggi Province received the President’s Award in the local government category of the 16th Korea Design Awards. At the 2014 Gyeonggi Regional Safety Council meeting held on October 27 at the Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency Office, Governor Nam Kyung-pil called on the heads of organizations to create a safe Gyeonggi Province. ⓒ Gyeonggi G-News Yu Je-hun

Gyeonggi Province received the President’s Award in the local government category of the 16th Korea Design Awards. The award is given to those organizations with exemplary performances in design activities. 

Hosted by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and organized by the Korea Institute of Design Promotion, the Korea Design Awards, the most prestigious awards of their kind in Korea, select and award local governments and enterprises with exemplary performances in design management activities every year. 

The reasons that Gyeonggi Province received this award include: ▲application of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) under the ordinance on environmental design for crime prevention in Gyeonggi Province, enacted for the first in the nation, when redevelopment and residential environment improvement projects are implemented; ▲the outreaching universal on-site design experience education; and ▲the design share project for small businesses.  

Gyeonggi Province has drawn the spotlight particularly for introducing CPTED for the first in the nation. CPTED is a multi-disciplinary approach to avert possible crime opportunities and to support residents through design improvements in vulnerable areas such as old city centers, empty lots and alleys.  

On September 17, at the Human Resource Development Center, the province provided some 300 provincial, city and military officials from relevant areas such as city planning, architecture and design departments with education in CPTED including crime theories, the concept of CPTED, psychology, machinery, security, architecture and city management.  

Gyeonggi Province has operated a pilot CPTED project since April this year to prevent crimes through environmental improvement design in vulnerable areas. The province enacted an ordinance on environment design to prevent crimes for the first time in the nation, and institutionalized its application first in construction, space development, city-center redevelopment and various other environmental improvement projects that are carried out or sponsored by provincial, city and military organizations. 

With regard to this, Gyeonggi Governor Nam Kyung-pil said on October 15 at the Gyeonggi Regional Safety Council meeting that, “All accidental disasters are predictable from the analysis of past data. In this respect, the CPTED project is also essential in making a safe Gyeonggi Province. Gyeonggi Province will establish a prevention system by creating a Gyeonggi Safe Map based on comprehensive big data about all kinds of accidents and incidents.”

Governor Nam stressed his view, citing the words of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, “Design or Resign,” on October 31 at the opening ceremony for the Gyeonggi Cultural Festival, saying, “Creating new values through creative design and taking responsibility for that are important.” 

Construction Design Division Director Ju Myeong-geol said, “Gyeonggi Province has made various efforts such as adopting an evaluation system for cities and counties to improve the quality of public design and securing rights in design work through registration. Taking this award as impetus, Gyeonggi Province will continue to make efforts to spread the CPTED project and public design policy even further.”

The award ceremony was held together with the opening ceremony for the 2014 Design Korea at KINTEX in Ilsan. Urban Housing Office Assistant Governor Ha Dae-seong attended the ceremony and received the award on behalf of Gyeonggi Province. 

◇ Urban Housing Office Assistant Governor Ha Dae-seong speaks to the audience after receiving the award. ⓒ Gyeonggi G-News

◇ Photos before and after the pilot CPTEC project, which has the goal of preventing crimes through improved environmental design in vulnerable areas.

 ⓒ Gyeonggi G-News | Park Gwan-sik malbut@kg21.net

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