Design Grounds

About

Hi, I'm Jaegeun "Jacob" Kim

I'm an industrial designer from South Korea. Since 2015 my work has been public space: street furniture, streetscapes, wayfinding signage, lighting streets, sculpture and safety-focused design for alleys and walkways. These are things that strangers use every day, in all weather, without instructions, so they have to work at human scale, be easy to read and stay safe after dark.

Design Grounds takes that discipline home. Most yard advice is a gallery of nice photos. I want to explain why a layout works: how wide a path should be, where light should fall, which edges and materials hold up, and how to check a design idea before you spend money on it.

Background

  • 2015–2017, Design Factory (Seoul): designer on the design team (assistant manager), working on public-sector design contracts: street furniture, public facilities, wayfinding, sculpture and street improvement projects.
  • 2018, Chungwoo Funstation: team lead for playground equipment and public amenity design.
  • 2018–2024, ROBE (Hanam): co-founder, co-CEO and head of design, covering public environments, public facilities, sculpture and graphics.
  • 2020–present, Design Ground: my independent studio for urban environmental design, design for social problems such as safer walking routes, publication and facility design, and generative AI visuals.
  • Education: B.A. in Industrial Design, Konkuk University (Glocal Campus). M.A. in Urban Environmental Design at the same university, in progress (expected 2027).

Selected public-space work

All of these projects are in South Korea. They are public-sector and streetscape projects, not home yards.

  • Standard street furniture for Suwon (Design Factory, 2015–2017): redesign and detailed design of the city's standard streetlights, litter bins, guard fences and bollards.
  • Seoul Excellent Public Design registration (Design Factory, 2015–2017): a guard fence design registered under Seoul's Excellent Public Design program.
  • Grand Prize, 5th Korea Expressway Corporation Public Design Competition (2016): awarded while I was at Design Factory, where I also worked on expressway rest areas, drowsy-driver shelters and roadside facility design.
  • Soyang River Dam landscape sculpture (Design Factory, 2015–2017): design of a landscape improvement sculpture and its on-site installation.
  • "Street of Light" lighting project, Nonhyeon Furniture Street, Gangnam-gu, Seoul (ROBE, 2018–2024): design work on a lighting project for a commercial street, led as head of design.
  • Crime prevention and safe-alley design, Gwangjin-gu and Jungnang-gu, Seoul (ROBE, 2018–2024): crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) for blind-spot spaces, and a safe alleyway design project.
  • Women-friendly safe walkway, Jeongseon County (Design Ground, 2025): a safer-walking-route project for the county's women-friendly city program.

Over the same years I've worked on dozens of public design projects, including design guidelines and standard designs for public facilities, wayfinding for subway stations and underground shopping areas, a retaining wall improvement in Ulsan and a park landscape plan in Osan.

What this means for your yard

I am not a landscape architect or a licensed contractor, and I haven't built yards in the United States. What I bring is the way public-space designers check their work:

  • Human scale: path widths, step heights, seat heights and clearances that people can actually use.
  • Wayfinding: entries, routes and house numbers that are easy to find and read, including at night.
  • Lighting: even, shielded, warm light where people walk, rather than glare in one spot and darkness everywhere else.
  • Safety: visible level changes, clear sightlines and fewer hidden corners.
  • Durable materials: edges, surfaces and details that hold up to weather and daily use.

Where a rule depends on local codes, soil, structure or electrical work, the guides say so and point you to the official source or a licensed professional.

How we work

  • Dimensions are checked against sources. Numbers in our guides, such as path widths, slopes, step sizes and lighting levels, are checked against published codes, standards, manufacturer data or university extension guidance and linked where possible. US rules vary by city and state, so we tell you what to confirm locally.
  • AI images are labeled concepts. AI concepts start from a real photo used with the owner's permission. Each one carries a visible "AI concept" label and matching image metadata, and it comes with the design reasoning behind it. An AI concept is not a built project or a construction drawing. See the AI Image Policy.
  • A person reviews everything. Writing and research tools can help with drafts, but I review, fact-check and edit every article before it is published, and the byline is the person accountable for it. See the Editorial Policy.
  • No invented experience. When a guide describes something from my practice, it really happened. Products are only called "tested" if I have actually used them.
  • Corrections are welcome. If you find an error, tell me and I'll fix it and update the date.

Generative AI

Alongside design work, I make generative AI images and video, and since 2025 I've run AI creative channels. Here I use AI for one practical job: showing a design idea on a real photo before anyone spends money, and checking that idea against real dimensions afterward.

Contact

Questions, corrections or partnership inquiries: [email protected], or see the contact page.