ĐÀ NẴNG — A team called Architecture for Community (Kicodo club) from Đà Nẵng’s Architecture College has completed painting murals on a set of concrete stairs and manhole covers in Cẩm Lệ District in the central city.

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 tourists.

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

Students used coloured paints to brighten up the concrete stairs with images of fish and ocean life.

Võ Hồ Bích Hạnh from the team said the pilot project aimed to raise awareness among local residents on illegal littering along the river side, which pollutes the river local habitat.

The project would review feedback on the work done so far, in order to continue the schedule in the future, Hạnh said.

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

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 Ngũ Hành Sơn District with murals to create a coastal art space for pedestrians and tourists.   

Đà Nẵng 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) in 2016-19.

In May, a mural created by artist Nguyễn Thị Thu Thủy and her colleagues from the New Hà Nội Art Company located in Đà Nẵng International Airport won the bronze medal at the 10th International Design Awards (IDA).

Different mural projects were also completed at fishing villages in Quảng Nam and Quảng Ngãi provinces in order to boost community-based tourism. — VNS