Songpa-gu Promotes Support for 'Our Neighborhood Artterior (Art+Interior)'

Significant Safety Benefits from Improved Small Business Store Designs with Safety Themes

[Asia Economy Reporter Jong-il Park] Songpa-gu (Mayor Park Seong-su) is promoting the ‘Our Neighborhood Artterior (Art+interior)’ support project to strengthen the self-sustainability of small business owners and self-employed individuals through collaboration with local artists.

Artterior (Art+Interior) is a project that improves the interior and exterior design of stores according to their characteristics by utilizing the creative talents of local artists.

It creates customized jobs for local artists and provides small business owners with an opportunity to establish differentiated management spaces.

In 2019, 30 small business stores were uniquely improved by incorporating artists’ creative talents, receiving favorable reviews from participants. As a result, surrounding merchants also expressed their desire to participate, leading to an expansion of the project scale this year.

In particular, a safe theme design to prevent the spread of COVID-19 will be mainly applied. Items related to COVID-19 prevention, such as safe take-out stands, protective partitions at cash registers, and box gardens for growing ingredients directly, will incorporate beauty to ensure safety and improve the consumption environment.

In September, the project’s overall management and operation entity will be publicly recruited and selected, followed by hiring design artists in various fields such as space improvement, murals, and craft design.

At the same time, applications will be accepted from 40 small business and self-employed stores struggling due to consumption stagnation, and the final Artterior target stores will be selected through screening.

In October, a 1:1 customized Artterior will be applied considering the characteristics of the stores, the opinions of small business owners, and the artists’ areas of expertise. The project will cover all items where artistic integration is possible, such as art walls, signs, logos, promotional materials, and product images.

The district office will recruit 40 support stores by September 25 and carry out the project until December this year, continuously improving and managing it based on participants’ feedback.

For more details, please contact the Regional Economy Division of Songpa-gu Office.

Park Seong-su, Mayor of Songpa-gu, stated, “At a time when everyone is struggling due to the economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 crisis, Artterior is a way for small business owners and artists to coexist,” adding, “We will do our best to turn this crisis into an opportunity, create differentiated management spaces, and revive the neighborhood economy.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.