As we progress further into our Integrated Urban Design module, we have been introduced to a variety of guest lecturers and case studies to trigger design ideas and concepts to focus on. A particular guest lecturer caught my interest due to their forward thinking of the quality of peoples lives both living and working in a city.
I have recently started feeling like I am becoming a slave to the corporate machine, living to work and working to live - a life I'm sure no one wanted for themselves but regardless, the life we all seem to fall into in order to survive. Spending the majority of my childhood and adolescence in a highly competitive and demanding sport which took over my life, as a young adult I now value my work/life balance more so than ever now I finally have found some control.
Busan Eco Delta Smart City caught my interest because I feel that Dr. Edward Yang understands and applied some of the same ideologies that I have applied to my own life to feel like I am getting the best of both my work life and actual 'life'. For example, everything within the city should be no longer than a 15 minute commute away in order to save time for social activities such as crafts/hobbies/family life.
When looking and applying for jobs, as well as specialising in the fields I wanted to work in - another criteria which my job needed to fit was to be less than a 30 minute commute away. I am unwilling to spend more than 1 hour of my day sat in a car or on public transport. Assuming we are awake for 16 hours a day (24 - 8 hours of sleep) and 8.5 of them are spent at work (A+DP average 9am - 5:30pm routine) and the majority of hobbies are conducted after work/in the evening, I want to be home no later than 6pm so I have enough time to unwind, relax and recuperate before heading out for my evening activities and/or complete some at home jobs such as cooking and cleaning. Call me selfish but I don't want to spend my remaining few hours when I am not working, recovering from, preparing for or commuting to work. These are some of the ideologies Dr. Edward Yang appreciates and has applied to Busan Eco Delta Smart City.