Busan is good

Neighborhood Infrastructure for a Happier Life under “15-Minute City Busan” Wins International Design Awards

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Busan Metropolitan City (Mayor Park Heong-joon) announced that the designs of two pieces of urban infrastructure in the Sinpyeong–Jangnim and Danggam–Gaegum 15-minute city neighborhoods have won awards at the Global Design iT Award 2025, an international competition that honors outstanding designs and projects in the domestic and global design industries.

The Gold Prize was awarded to the Sinpyeong–Jangnim neighborhood’s “Saha Fire Station Fire-Themed Deullak Nallak,” while the Silver Prize went to the “Danggam-dong Linear Park” in the Danggam–Gaegum neighborhood.

The “Saha Fire Station Fire-Themed Deullak Nallak” is a children’s cultural complex scheduled for completion in February 2026 in the Sinpyeong–Jangnim neighborhood, one of the representative pilot areas of 15-Minute City Busan. The facility received high praise for its design, which graphically depicts the city’s communication character “Boogi” as a firefighter extinguishing a fire with a hose, using bright colors to create a space that feels friendly and approachable for children.

The “Danggam-dong Linear Park,” located in the Danggam–Gaegum neighborhood—the first area to complete construction under the 15-Minute City Busan initiative—won the Silver Prize this year following last year’s Bronze Prize, earning recognition for its excellence for the second consecutive year.

Regarding the Saha Fire Station Fire-Themed Deullak Nallak, the city plans to remodel an aging fire training tower and transform it into a specialized “Deullak Nallak 119” facility, allowing children and citizens to engage with and learn about fire safety in an accessible and experiential way. The Saha Fire Station currently has a fire training tower that is over 40 years old, with outdated buildings and facilities that no longer adequately support training activities. The fire safety experience center on the first floor has also become underutilized due to its age. In 2023, during the 15-Minute City resident governance process, an idea was proposed to redevelop this facility into a fire-themed Deullak Nallak, which the city adopted and is now moving forward with.

The planned layout includes a fire-related library and a Deullak Nallak space integrating digital content on the first floor; a CPR training room where participants learn alongside firefighters on the second floor; fire extinguisher and fire engine experience areas on the third floor; a fire escape experience zone on the fourth floor; and the fifth through seventh floors dedicated to core fire training functions.

The Danggam-dong Linear Park features a design that reflects the area’s unique characteristics and emphasizes ecological value, establishing a new paradigm for urban infrastructure design through its garden-style pedestrian walkway. In front of the Danggam Comprehensive Social Welfare Center in Busanjin District, the road width was reduced and the sidewalk expanded to create the Danggam-dong Linear Park, a garden-style walkway inspired by the image of a local stream. The park is planted with layers of wildflowers native to Korea’s mountains and fields, allowing visitors to stroll comfortably while enjoying seasonal blooms.

Since its completion in November 2024, the park has become a popular destination for residents, and visitors from other local governments in Korea as well as from overseas—including Japan and the United States—have visited the site to study this new form of garden-style pedestrian space. The linear park along the roadside clearly demonstrates that connecting fragmented pedestrian spaces and designing them beautifully to reflect local identity are key elements in enhancing accessibility, a core value of the 15-minute city concept.

Busan Metropolitan City continues to pursue the 15-Minute City Busan policy with the aim of creating a pleasant and happy city enriched by culture, community, and environment—a city where people would want to live again even if given another chance at life. To this end, the city is advancing a range of hub projects, including the Happy Challenge Program (51 projects, KRW 100 billion) to develop representative neighborhoods, a policy-based open call program (15 projects, KRW 92.2 billion) to create multifunctional complex spaces, and the Vision Tour Program (17 projects, KRW 272.7 billion) to develop core anchor facilities.

Mayor Park Heong-joon stated, “Building on this award, we will make thorough preparations to successfully advance 15-minute city projects in connection with Busan’s designation as the World Design Capital 2028,” adding, “We will continue to develop ‘15-Minute City Busan’ by creating many facilities with excellent design and diverse content close to where people live, so that everyone can enjoy daily life and find moments of relaxation.”