Paul Kang

Paul J. J. Kang is a City Storyteller. To him, the city has always been a stage, and the ordinary people inside it his protagonists — including the elderly, and, soon, their humanoid neighbors.

His path began in Seoul and unfolded over twelve years of walking New York, carrying two words that slowly fused into one: death and design became city. A city, he came to believe, is the container for how people live and how they leave. That conviction gave rise to Sim Eternal City — a future-city framework engaging climate change, the longevity society, and resilience — and to his guiding philosophy: New For The Olds, Life For Death.

Over twenty-five years and more than one hundred cities, Paul has shaped global initiatives with UNEP, APEC, and IOC bid committees, advised the City of Seoul on its international presence, and — from his base in New York — built projects that connect cities across the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia, reaching from Latin America to the MENA region. He also created The Romantic Movement: Seoul, a film series that drew over 147 million views. As a city storyteller, he publishes bcd-W, a daily newsletter magazine threading today's cities into conversation under the banner One City, One Story, Many Cities.

Through his studio IWBFD (I Was Born For Death), Paul makes stories along three lines: the Sim Eternal City Project, We Kings Creative A.C.Ts, and the Happy Death Day Collection. Sim Eternal City itself imagines a floating city built from four decommissioned cruise ships — designed not as a 15-Minute City but as an 18-Minute City, where fifteen minutes carry the infrastructure of survival and three minutes carry memory, recording, and connection. Inside, elderly citizens and humanoid robot co-citizens share daily life around landmarks like the Life Tree Nexus and the No Stone Tombstone — for in this city, memory itself is the infrastructure. To carry such storytelling from the page onto the city's stage, Paul also serves as Director of Xesange Creative Lab, Intercom's creative business design institute — an extension of his storyteller's work into the practice of story-doing.

"Let Me Tell Your Story." It is both stance and method — a commitment to shaping new narratives together with cities, people, and the lives inside them.