The Seoul Design Olympiad, being held from October 10-30, 2008, was a great chance to see the designs of the future, along with a fair amount of the designs of today. The picture above is just one of the many advertisements for the three-week-long event – and yes, it seems every major festival must have a cute cartoon anthropomorphic figure promoting the event 🙂

Arriving at Jamsil Sports Complex took some time on the subway, since I was coming from the other side of town. The complex consists of the Olympic Stadium, the main arena for the 1988 Summer Olympics, along with the Jamsil Baseball Stadium and a number of other arenas were competitions were held; most of the events were centered in or around the Olympic Stadium.

The very first stop on the way to seeing the sites was a number of peculiarly-decorated hearts. A sign proclaimed the exhibit of about 15 hearts as the Love heArt project, with these as my favorites:

Those are plastic bottle nipples attached all around the heart, by the way.

Nice to see the globe transformed into a heart-shaped globe. Pretty accurately done, too.

The next stop I chose to make (which was made by simply looking around and following my eyes) was at a place called the Mobile Cube. From the brochure, “For a long time, museums have been a closed and limited area for exchanging artistic value. In this exhibition, the meaning of a museum has been re-interpreted suitable for the modern world, offering a new definition of space for people to share artistic value.” Um, sure, ok 🙂

In reality, the Mobile Cube was a number of shipping containers, each brightly colored and arranged in a circle and having a different exhibit going on. Most were interactive in some way, allowing the passers-by to create as well as appreciate.

One of my favorite ‘cubes’ – people literally took markers (provided by the staff) to the walls, writing their names or messages as they saw fit. Some chose to write on the t-shirts on display, which made for an interesting continuity.

An interesting concept – give people a chance to have their picture taken while holding a picture which you choose off the wall. Return in 2 hours for your souvenir – a framed picture of you holding the picture from the wall. Get it? Good.

A map of the area, along with where to see what. The majority of the sights ended up being inside the Olympic Stadium, so I headed in that direction.

Along the way I discovered these two remnants of the 1988 games. The first displays the winners and times in every event held during the 1988 Olympic games to be displayed for all time. The second is a picture of Son Kee Jung, the winner of the Berlin Olympics marathon held in 1936. A Korean with Japanese nationality, he is considered “a national hero and the pride of all athletes” according to the plaque.

Moving inside the stadium – and out of the rain – allowed me to see the beginning of a different side of the festival. Looking at the brochure, you’ll see that everything has a nice-sounding name with an impressive-sounding explanation (I’ll forgive the typos, of course). Once actually inside the building, however, what you see seems to work against those original explanations:

A variety of art, sometimes accompanied by the artists that created them.

An orchid exhibition – complete with Latin names and the Korean pronunciation / transliteration of it.

Ooohh… pretty… Yes, that’s me getting fancy with the macro setting again =)

From KOFIA (Korea Fashion Illustration Association) ,several artists hand-drawing their designs on a t-shirt. No telling if these were on sale or not, but quite a few designs were very nice.

Of course, no event would be complete without something for the kids – a clown had a long line waiting for balloon animals.

One of the models for a new building project, or some new building project that’s already been built. Remember, this is a design show – designs of all kinds, whether arts, crafts, or anything else having to do with design.

Once again, remember this is a design show – what you see here is a miniature of a system called ‘Power Glass’, an “environmentally friendly music fountain”.

After walking around for a couple hours inside (and concluding I could spend the entire day inside), I took a walk back outside, where thankfully the rain had stopped:

A group of Koreans huddled around an area on the track, hoping to see themselves on the big screen. Also around the track were some sights:

An inflatable… building?? Sure, why not? In the middle room was a presentation of some kind (entirely in Korean), although it presented a beautiful walkway from one side to the other.

AutoCAD and AutoDesk, among many other professional/uber-geeky programs.

One of the sights inside of Amore Pacific, an Asian brand of skin care products.

Two of the entries to a seat design competition. The latter was weighted to where some weight would make that side drop like a see-saw.

Next on the list was the Seoul Design Competition. According to the brochure, this event “is a newly launched internation design competition…and aims to present future-oriented design solutions that are environmentally-friendly and creative and are applicable for Seoul’s urban projects.” Sure, OK – recognizing that what works in Seoul may work well almost anywhere else in the world:

The Fold & Hold – a foldable bike that locks in place when folded, making your bicycle seat a place to sit while riding on the subway.

No idea how this works, but you’ve gotta admit having a Roomba doing your environmental work for you is a great idea.

A space-saving table / chair / desk design – all levels of the design compact to one ‘leaf’ when folded back together.

The quote from the poster is priceless – “Public Interior Bench made from the Wads of Paper – Founding Potentiality in Everyday Life”. I just don’t know what to say – it’s a bench made from wads of paper. While not quite as clever or pretty as the other exhibits I’ve pictured, there is something to be said about its ingenuity and use of materials that might otherwise be clogging a landfill. I shudder for the day when paper wads make up the bench I sit on while waiting for the subway, though…

Walking through the gallery of 100+ ideas and inventions was easily the highlight of the day – I only wish I could show you more, but this is one of those stories where you have to see it for yourself.

‘Dripping icicles’ hanging off a tree in the Olympic Stadium.

Now back outside, a rather odd-looking group complete with those in costume and those taking photos began offering free hugs. While their goal is probably not to make a fool of themselves, they don’t seem to mind…

The aforementioned mascot making an appearance to play ‘Rock Paper Scissors’ with kids. The game (usually in Korean) is quite popular here, and with the same rules – teachers, you can play RPS in your classroom and the kids will know what you mean =)

I almost wish there wasn’t as much stuff to see. It wasn’t until looking at the brochure that I realized there were three floors of the stadium with things going on. With the entire festival lasting three weeks, I know I missed a lot of special events – but missing even the regular events despite spending most of the afternoon there was a little frustrating. Seeing all these different displays, companies, and people creating their own design was heartwarming though. There was a definitely a LOT of people that had to come together to make this event happen, and for the most part the event went smoothly.

The next time the Design Olympiad is held, I hope they can make it appeal more to the foreigners. Despite having a readily understandable English brochure and a wonderful time, I saw perhaps 4 or 5 foreigners out of a sea of tens of thousands of Koreans. While most of the events and signs had enough English to make things easy to navigate, I suspect the bigger problem was understanding – what the heck is a ‘Design Olympiad’ anyway? Why is this event worth attending? I submit that for the foreigner population that enjoys art galleries or invention contests, this event is highly worth attending. Also attend if you’re curious about the up-and-coming trends coming out of Seoul and/or Korea.