Global Shapers HCMC's Saigon Makeover competition is back and accepting innovative submissions from local designers until April 23.
Saigon Makeover encourages local residents, both foreign and Vietnamese, to come up with creative ways to beautify their city. Participants must take a photo of any area of Saigon which they feel could use improvement, design an upgrade to the elements in that photo and submit the two images along with a 300-word written statement describing the design.
This year's theme, “The Children's City”, focuses on redeveloping urban spaces with Saigon's younger residents in mind.
“It was very clear from the beginning that there are not many safe spaces for children in Saigon,” Kristie Nguyen, a Global Shaper from the organization's Saigon hub, tells Saigoneer. “Parents here are constantly on guard and overprotective of their children because of the dangerous infrastructure currently in place, like broken sidewalks, lack of railings and signs, traffic everywhere and non-inclusive public spaces. We need to raise awareness about these urban issues, and through the Saigon Makeover project contestants can innovate and inspire change towards spaces that we navigate everyday.”
The competition kicked off over the weekend with one of Saigon Makeover's new features for 2016: an extensive program of workshops and speaker panels. Last Saturday, young creatives gathered to hear animator Doan Tran Anh Tuan, architect and HCMC University of Architecture professor Nguyen Huu Vinh and graphic designer Truong Huyen Duc discuss the city's art ecosystem and how to foster art education for youth.
Moving forward, Nguyen says such events will be a regular fixture of the competition. In order to give Saigon Makeover a greater focus, she explains, Global Shapers is also honing in on three main goals for the competition: to encourage community responsibility with regard to public spaces, to foster innovative and creative design in Saigon and to imagine a better city for future generations.
For more information on the competition or to submit your own entry, visit Saigon Makeover's website.
Saigoneer is a proud media sponsor of this year's Saigon Makeover competition.
