Designing Through Space

I regarded his face in silence. That question was not simply about criteria for appointing committee members — it was a challenge to the very way a city was seen.

His tone was careful, but a firm conviction ran beneath it. When my expression betrayed a reaction, Cho Yeon-woo picked up where he'd left off without hesitation.

"If urban planning is ultimately about defining a city's structure, shouldn't the lives of the people who live inside that structure be considered as well? Yet most of our committee members come from traffic, civil engineering, and real estate backgrounds. And the facilities included in these designs are mostly welfare centers, libraries, playgrounds, community centers..."

I gave a small nod.

"The voices of experts in welfare, culture, and education are almost never reflected when these spaces are actually planned. They're treated as nothing more than boxes to check within a 'floor area requirement.'"

His words weren't a mere technical grievance. This was something only a person who saw a city not as structure but as the flow of life could say.

Through the small door of committee appointments, he was proposing that we change the entire design language of the city.

"So," I said, "who do you think we need?"

Cho Yeon-woo paused for a moment. It didn't look like time to organize his thoughts — it looked like preparation to take out words he had been carrying inside him.

Then he began to speak, deliberately and clearly.

"People working in fields like welfare, culture, education, psychology, and the arts. People who can read a city not through numbers and lines alone, but through the actual senses of human beings."

"Hmm..."

"Take people from the welfare field, for instance. They have extremely practical standards for who will use these spaces, and how. Education specialists know by instinct how safely children can move through which streets, and for how far. Artists interpret space in ways that transcend its physical limits. Urban planning, I believe, is only complete when those sensibilities come together."

At his words, a single word surfaced in my mind.

Sensibility.

It was a word ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that had never appeared in yesterday's meeting, nor in the stacks of planning documents I'd reviewed. And yet here in this quiet corner of an office, it was reaching me again as the most essential language of design.

"Look at the committee's current composition. Not all, but most are men in their mid-fifties or older, with doctorates in civil engineering, architecture, or transportation. That may be necessary expertise, but the vision for the city as a whole is far too uniform. Who does the designing matters, of course — but I think we need a structure that also asks whom that design will actually work for."

Wordlessly, I looked again at the floor plan on his desk. However precisely a drawing is rendered, it loses its meaning the moment the legs of the people who would walk that space turn away from it.

City design is, in the end, the work of drawing human movement — no, it is the work of opening up space so that people can walk, rest, and wander freely.

I fell silent longer than I'd intended, and Cho Yeon-woo waited without disturbing that silence. The coffee cup beside the desk still held its untouched, warming contents.

I lifted my head.

"Manager."

"Yes, Mayor."

"Good points, all of them. That sensibility — we'll reflect it in our appointments. It seems I'll need to step out of my blueprint-only way of seeing, starting with myself."

He didn't smile, but he bowed his head quietly. In place of any word of thanks, that gesture was his answer.

I rose from my seat, and he rose again with him, courteous to the last.

"Have a copy of that drawing made and sent to my office."

"Yes, sir. I'll organize it and deliver it."

As I stepped out of the office, I allowed myself a small smile.

He came in just to sync ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠up with me, and walked away with a harvest I never saw coming.

Somehow it felt like I was the one who'd learned a move. Working with civil servants like this — that, I could definitely get used to.

The moment I stepped through the door of the Citizen Space Design Division, the gazes of the staff scattered across the corridor quietly followed me. Startled eyes, careful greetings, and a vibration in the air made without a single whisper.

It was the weighty reaction of people who sensed, more than the fact that I had come here myself, that this visit itself meant something.

I bowed my head slightly, meeting one pair of eyes after another, and headed back toward the elevator without a word.

Since becoming mayor, I had never once visited a division office like this. Not because I thought it would shake the organization or muddy its order.

The mayoralty simply tended to be bound to a vertical line, and that vertical line was composed of only two words: report and approval.

Today was different. As I had begun to look at the work of city design anew, I found myself wanting to bend that line. Instead of viewing the city from above downward, I wanted to see it sideways, horizontally — to sit beside people and look again.

Before I reached the elevator, my eyes met those of a staff member watching me from near the door, eyes gone round with surprise. It was Jeong Ye-na, an assistant manager of the Citizen Space Design Division.

She hastily flipped over the document she'd been reading, but her expression had already given her away — a dazed bewilderment, a flicker of excitement, and a smile she couldn't hide. When the colleague beside her jabbed her with an elbow, Jeong Ye-na straightened up as if by automatic reflex.

Mayor, hello!

Her lips moved, but no sound came out.

Cho Yeon-woo walked me to the door to see me off and spoke.

"As you requested, we've revised the community center drawings. Starting next week, the design task force will begin reorganizing the plan to reflect the citizen survey results."

"Good. People's voices need to be woven in properly. A city only becomes good when empathy is achieved."

"Yes. Design isn't drawings — it's dialogue."

At those words, Jeong Ye-na nearly dropped the highlighter in her hand. Feigning indifference, she watched the exchange between Cho Yeon-woo and the mayor, and Manager Cho chuckled softly.

"Assistant Manager Jeong Ye-na — next time the mayor visits, do manage a calm hello."

She shot up from her seat, startled.

"N-no, sir! I wasn't doing it on purpose... I was just surprised..."

I nodded with a smile.

Flustered, Jeong Ye-na ducked her head and hurried back to her seat. Just before the elevator doors closed, I caught her murmuring to herself.

"...If I'd known this would happen, I'd have at least tidied my desk..."

Riding down to the first floor, I turned Cho Yeon-woo's final words over in my mind.

People who feel a city through their senses, not through numbers and lines.

That statement was no sentimental flourish. It might be a declaration that we had to change the criteria for composing the Urban Planning Committee — no, that even before that, we had to change the standard of the very philosophy by which we looked at a city.

The moment I returned to the mayor's office, I asked my secretary for a set of materials.

"The roster of the Yeojin City Urban Planning Committee, and all the meeting minutes for the past three years. Also each member's background and the route by which they were nominated."

"By end of day?"

The secretary asked again, wide-eyed, but I nodded and repeated, firm.

"Yes. By end of day."

Sitting at my desk, I switched on the monitor. Countless reports were open on the screen, yet nothing registered.

Instead, the community center drawing Cho Yeon-woo had just shown me, and his words alongside it, circled vividly in my head.

A structure with users who cannot use it. A public facility sited where the public cannot reach it.

Lines drawn, people absent. That had been urban planning until now.

In the name of the public, we had made far too many things distant; in the name of expertise, we had excluded the sensibility of lived life.

Urban planning must not be an administrative procedure — it must be a structure that places people at its center. And now that philosophy had to be embedded in the committee's very composition.

Technology and sensibility must sit together; experience and language must collide. Design must be dialogue, not calculation.

Suddenly, a joke Kang Seol-heon had made back in the meeting room came to mind.

Strictly speaking, we'll need to change the people who do the judging, too.

I let out a long breath — somewhere between a laugh and a sigh — and quietly left myself a note beside the monitor.

It was scrawled on a little post-it on my desk, but I believed this note would soon become the first sentence that changed the design of Yeojin City.

The next Urban Planning Committee roster had to show this empathy, clear and unmistakable. And I hoped that someday, walking through the city, its residents would say:

'This is a city where empathy actually exists.'

Not many words were exchanged at the directors' meeting. I had convened it myself, and the agenda numbered exactly one:

A sweeping overhaul of the Urban Planning Committee.

Until yesterday it had been a matter of coordination; from today, it was a matter of declaration.

Before the meeting began, Kang Seol-heon quietly lowered the memo she'd been holding onto the table. The key directors were all in attendance — the Director of the Urban Space Bureau, the Head of Planning and Coordination, the Head of Administrative Support, the Policy Coordinator — and Cho Yeon-woo sat quietly in the rear as an observer.

I had no intention of circling the point. I had said enough about wanting to change the city.

Now was the time to say, plainly, how I intended to change it.

"The Urban Planning Committee will no longer be a mere review body. It must become a partner that designs Yeojin City's spaces and draws its future alongside us."

The air in the room hardened. It might have sounded like familiar rhetoric, but the structure of the sentence had changed.

Not a review body. A partner.

I did not stop.

"The committee as it stands has been composed around real estate and construction. In practice it has served as a rubber stamp, raising its hands for a select few, repeating decision after decision made without citizens, with empathy shut out entirely."

I passed the A4 sheets across the table: the member roster, attendance rates, the record of key agenda items and every vote. Who had raised their hand, and for whose benefit — it was all written there.

And I was about to declare my intent to change all of it.

"This overhaul is not simply a matter of new appointments. We are restructuring the committee itself. It will include public architects, experts in welfare, culture, and education, and figures from civic organizations. The committee must not be a place where buildings are reviewed — it must be a place where cities are designed. We need people who can contemplate who will use a given space and how, people capable of drawing the structure of life itself."

For a long moment, no one spoke. I could feel that everyone had seen this coming.

They had probably known I would push it through. Silence disguised as assent. Into that silence, the Director of the Urban Space Bureau carefully raised ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his head and opened his mouth.

"Mayor, your vision for the committee's structure is entirely persuasive. However, we'll need a little time to coordinate internally. Since the terms of the existing members are nearly expired, that poses no great problem, but the scope of authority the committee will be able to exercise requires review under the relevant statutes. Some of your proposals may extend beyond the framework of the municipal ordinance."

I nodded. It was not a counterargument — it was a request for administrative housekeeping.

At this level, it was a signal of acceptance; at the same time, it meant the administrative apparatus itself did not yet fully believe.

"Review it thoroughly internally. But understand this — if we simply follow the old way, looking only at legal standards and weighing building coverage and floor-area ratios, then the committee is meaningless. That's work civil servants can handle with a manual. The reason an Urban Planning Committee must exist is to design what kind of city we will build within that framework."

A brief silence, and then the director asked again.

"Forgive me, but could you say that once more? We are the administration. Wouldn't it be proper for us to judge according to legal standards and procedure? Moreover, one could raise concerns about potential infringement of property rights. For the committee to weigh matters of sensibility and sentiment... that may be more than it can bear."

I put more force into my voice.

"No one is asking the administration to take sides. What must change is the lens through which the committee views the city. Legal standards are the floor — the committee's job is to design above it. I have read the minutes to date. Not once has there been a discussion of this city's structure or its way of life. Heights, areas, ratios, and nothing beyond. Is that what a city is?"

My words had run long. I consciously lowered my voice, but not a shred of their meaning was diminished.

The director and several others bowed their heads or dropped their eyes. Not objecting meant understanding. It wasn't that they didn't know — they simply hadn't known what to do.

Most of those who had occupied those seats until now had either followed the currents of vested interest without a word, or played dumb all the way through.

I stopped speaking, and silence settled over the meeting room.

I caught sight of Kang Seol-heon quietly organizing the minutes, her pen marking something on her memo. I had a premonition that this very moment was being recorded, internally, as the turning point.

As the meeting drew to a close, Cho Yeon-woo gave ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a quiet nod from the back. He said nothing, but yesterday's single line of his surfaced in my mind again: design is sensibility.

From now on, it would be language before numbers, people before institutions, sensibility before form that moved this city.