Towards a Smarter Urban Park: Busan Citizens Park

Abstract

Among various types of external space, a park, which is a critical urban public infrastructure, must be planned and redeveloped as a smart park that can reflect new technologies rather than being designed and managed in a traditional way. This study sets Busan Citizens Park, a representative urban park of Busan in Korea, as a case study site and presents guidelines for transforming the existing park into a smart park. To set the direction for presenting the guideline for park smartization, the role and function of desirable urban park in the 4th industrial age are defined. After that, smart technologies concerning park management are comprehensively organized through precedent project studies and literature research to examine the applicability of smart technologies. Based on the information obtained through field surveys, manager interviews, specialist interviews, and literature review, the management and usage status of Busan Citizens Park are identified. In order to improve Busan Citizens Park into a smart urban park, we propose smart technologies that can be applied to five components of the park: furnishings and facilities, water, green space, pavement and roads, and users. This study also suggests ways to distinguish management as urban and local dimensions by categorizing the hierarchy of technologies as urban, park, and facility scale. In conclusion, this presents guidelines for the introduction of next-generation technologies that can be applied to urban parks as a way to actively respond to changes that have already begun.