Wongok area, where the highest percentage of foreign residents reside in Ansan, is the only designated Multicultural Special Village Zone in South Korea. Ansan City implemented the Local Design Project to revitalise the area by emphasising the unique identity of the Multicultural Special Village Zone. It focused on fostering vibrant community spaces, enhancing facility value, implementing complementary programs and promotional activities for maximizing the project impact. The project was conducted through collaboration among the government (Ansan City), community (local residents), academia (Hanyang university), and Industry (design firms).
Context / Problem identified
As of Dec 2025, there are 19 858 foreign residents in Multicultural Special Village Zone out of a total population of 21 810, accounting for 90.2%. Residents come from 50 different countries including South Korea.
Since its designation as the Multicultural Special Village Zone in 2009, Ansan has managed the zone by implementing various projects such as undergrounding power lines, creating a pedestrian-friendly street, a crime-free street, and a multicultural food street. These efforts led to winning the Grand Prize for the Multicultural Inclusive City sector at the Korea’s Representative Brand Awards in 2022, and the Excellence Award (the Minister of the Interior and Safety Award) in the Best Practices for Supporting Foreign Residents Competition.
Since joining the Intercultural City network in 2020, Ansan City has recognised that not only government-driven policies but also participation of various stakeholders in the local community, intercultural exchange and cooperation are essential for fostering an intercultural city. In line with this principle, Ansan developed and implemented the Local Design Project that fosters spaces and improves the environment in the multicultural special zone through cooperation of the government, community, academia, and industry.
Implementation process
-2023
In the first half, through “Public Design Lab” joint project with Hanyang university Erica campus, Ansan City developed 70 test designs in 4 major areas with the participation of 70 students from Hanyang university Erica campus’s College of Design. In the second half, the Local Design Project was selected for a competitive project for the preservation of local characteristics by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, which helped secure the budget for the project.
-2024
The comprehensive master plan for the Local Design project was drafted and, after soliciting residents’ feedback through resident meetings, the plan was finalized.
-The end of 2024-2025
Spaces were created through the installation of facilities and promotional activities were implemented. A video that captured the transformation process of Multicultural Special Village Zone through the Local Design Project was created and displayed as bus advertisements. Promotional videos for the Local Design Project and local businesses in the Multicultural Special Village Zone were also produced and uploaded to YouTube. An illustration competition was held to collect works that captured unique identity of the Multicultural Special Village Zone, 16 winners were selected.
Results achieved
In order to identify problems and improve the area, 7 resident meetings in 2022 and 4 resident meetings in 2023 were conducted, with 969 participants in total. Decisions were made through discussions on solutions and development directions for design with residents, merchants, and students, incorporating their feedback.
Multiple areas were newly renovated, including the intercity bus stop and roadsides which connects the Multicultural Special Village Zone and outside areas, resting areas such as Multicultural Eoullim (Togetherness) Park, and the outdoor stage next to the Foreign Resident Support Headquarters where numerous intercultural performances take place. Award-winning works selected from the Local Design Illustration Competition for Multicultural Special Village Zone were exhibited at the Foreign Resident Support Headquarters, emphasizing the identity of Multicultural Special Village Zone that is created by both locals and foreign residents together.
The Multicultural Special Village Zone is a symbolic area that represents harmony, equality, and diversity of locals and foreign residents in Ansan. Improving the aesthetics of the zone helps community members live and interact in a more pleasant environment, and therefore is a basic prerequisite to revitalise the local economy. Although it is still a future task to increase the proportion of visitors to the zone, the process of searching for and utilizing local resources for the environmental improvement of the zone is meaningful by itself. The foundational step of collaborating with Hanyang University Erica Campus, which is a representative university in Ansan and has a very high internationalisation index, ranking second nationally in the proportion of international undergraduate students, and the process of gathering community input over a long span of time—all these elements of the project can become an asset for maintaining and improving the Multicultural Special Village Zone in the future.
Cross-cutting aspects
The project was conducted by collecting and reflecting opinions from citizens with diverse affiliations and identities, including youth such as university students. It is a project to improve the environment of Multicultural Special Village Zone, where general maintenance has been continuously implemented over the last 20 years since 2009. Maintenance is being conducted with constant budget allocation through the Ansan Foreign Resident Support Headquarters network, which ensures high sustainability.
