A team called Architecture for Community (Kicodo club) from Da Nang’s Architecture University has completed painting murals on a set of concrete stairs and manhole covers in Cam Le District.

Lively walk: Colourful painted stairs create an art space for pedestrians on the Cam Le River — Photos courtesy of I love Cam Le facebook

The team said their work was part of a pilot project under the Rapid Planning project, which seeks to turn heavily polluted sites into attractive spaces for local residents and visitors from both home and abroad.

About 20 volunteers and students from the club spent one week (from 18-26 August) cleaning up the site along Thang Long Street, which was overgrown with bushes and had become a dumping ground for rubbish.

Arts space: A manhole cover painted with a lively ocean scene

Students used coloured paints to brighten up the concrete stairs with images of fish and ocean life.
Vo Ho Bich Hanh from the team said the pilot project aimed to raise awareness amongst local residents on illegal littering along the river, which pollutes the river local habitat.

The project would review feedback on the work done to date, in order to continue the schedule in the future, Hanh said.

She said the district would set up a public gym and parks for kids in this area.

Arts for the community: the group's members painting a flight of stairs.

The mural pilot project was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).  

The city’s Tourism Department also plans to decorate a 1.5km sea dyke in Ngu Hanh Son District with murals to create a coastal art space for pedestrians.

Da Nang was selected as one of the cities, along with Kigali (Rwanda) and Assiut (Egypt) under the Rapid Planning project by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) during the 2016 – 2019 period.

In May, a mural created by artist Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy and her colleagues from the New Ha Noi Arts Company located in the Da Nang International Airport won the bronze medal at the 10^th International Design Awards (IDA).

Different mural projects were also completed at fishing villages in Quang Nam and Quang Ngai provinces in order to boost community-based tourism.

(Source: VNS/ DA NANG Today)