어린이 보육공간의 실태와 개선 방안에 관한 연구

Abstract

A Study on the improvement plans and Situation of the Child Care Facilities

OH, Kyeong Ran Advisor:Prof. Moon Jeong Min Department of Plastic Design, Graduate School of Chosun University

As society develops, the number of women who intend to improve their quality of living through financial independence and social achievements is increasing due to higher educational background and improved social status of women. So, as child education and protection have been highlighted as serious social issues, the necessity and importance of children care centers are getting higher and social responsibility for bringing-up of children is increasing. The children care centers are quantitatively increasing due to desperate efforts of the government and the private sectors, but qualitative improvement of facilities for infants and children is still insufficient. So, planning space for babies and infants becomes an important task to be managed. The children care centers aims at business profits by considering physical environment as secondary factors. Or their facilities have been uniformly established because of uniformed design standards and directions, which does not provide appropriate educational background for infants and babies. Mixed age class that is currently provided is intended to resolve a problem of lacking facilities, not to reach an educational goal. And the present children's centers have focused on infants, but according to changed social demand, they have to take care of both infants and babies. Accordingly, their physical environment need many changes, which causes many problems on architectural plans.

Therefore, this study compares and analyses the current status of babies and infants care centers focusing on children centers in apartment complexes, a universal residential style for planning children centers, in order to present an architectural standard of nurturing space and suggestions on reasonable and effective nurturing environments.

The specifications of this study are presented as follows: Chapter 2 identifies theoretical reviews of the study based on previous studies and bibliography as follows: the concept of nurturing, kinds of nurturing facilities, importance of physical environment, standard of nurturing facilities, the concept of infants and babies, characteristics of developmental areas according to each developmental step, the concept of children centers, division system of space, composition and types of space, and general considerations. Chapter 3 considers examples of children centers. For this, this study selected ten children centers within apartment complexes in Gwangju built by J Construction Company whose residents have moved in since 1990, and conducted research on the current status of construction of universal children centers, properties and types of space, and the status of nurturing space of infants and babies through the current status research of construction, questionnaire, facilities plan, and facilities research.

Chapter 4 presents suggestions on improvement of reasonable and effective nurturing environments through proposed plan and standards of children centers in apartment complexes based on the results of research and analyses in previous chapters, and a ground plan where suggestions are applied for space. Through the above discussion, Chapter 5 obtains the following results: This study selects ten children centers within apartment complexes to obtain actual suggestions of architectural plan standards of Korean children centers. And it analyses the current status of our universal nurturing facilities through research on the current status of children center construction, questionnaire, other facilities plan and research on design and the results are presented as follows:

1. Whole scale and functional arrangement of nurturing facilities should be reasonable. The mean area of facility investigated was 3,46㎡ per child, which is less than 3.63㎡ of the minimum area in accordance with the infants and children nurturing code. Of the ten centers investigated, facility areas of five centers(50%) did not come up to a standard. Because of the lack of nurturing facilities due to lack of facility area, five centers of the ten did not take care of children, and even the ones which are taking care of children connected nurturing facilities to kitchens to reduce the corridor area. As infant nurturing rooms did not have marginal area, desks had to be moved two or four times everyday. Many centers did not have the second space for play, siesta and dinning.

2. Nurturing space should be organized according to introduced nurturing programs. There were lots of troubles such as entering nurturing rooms via other rooms. So, nurturing space should be organized. As children centers were arranged on part of the first floor, or part of the management office, one side or two sides of the center contacted to other sides of the building. So, as part facing the external air decreased, physical conditions such as sunshine or ventilation were poor and ground composition were unreasonable.

3. Characteristics of baby nurturing should be satisfied in respect to physical environments. Baby nurturing have characteristics such as nurturing by two teachers, importance of siesta, meals in nurturing rooms, and changing diapers. So, nurturing room, siesta room, milk room, cleaned room should be organically connected.

4. The full number of children to be taken care of should be sufficiently considered. According to speculation on economic aspect in respect to management of children centers, presence or double use of the rooms required are decided, but importance of required rooms should be considered and the required rooms should be independent as possible as can be.

5. Discussion and speculation among experts on baby and infants nurturing, interior&architecture designers, administrative&legal professionals are required. From the beginning, they were intended to be used for children care centers, but they were suffering from lack in facility area, the required rooms for baby and infants and facilities appropriate for each room. Before the construction, qualitative improvement in physical environment of children care centers through sufficient discussion and speculation is needed.

Based on interpretation of what was investigated and analysed as above, this study presents the following suggestions on effective and reasonable plan of baby and infant nurturing environment:

1. As prerequisites for children care center space plan, this study proposes identification of developmental characteristics of babies and infants, bio-engineering design and conditions of space composition. According to developmental characteristics of babies and infants, a function of protection in respect to baby nurturing is considered as more important. Space for siesta, washing, and milking should be independently prepared. For infant nurturing, as an educational factor is considered as more important, siesta room or toilets should be independently arranged and space corresponding to each activity should be prepared.

2. As a standard of children care center space plan, this study suggests a plane type design through computation of areas, composition of nurturing group and an analysis on space composition. In respect to area computation, this study suggests as follow: facility area per baby within apartment complexes is above a minimum of 4.5㎡ (mean facility area is 133.6㎡/30 persons) and facility area is 160㎡ . And, the mean area of nurturing room per baby under three is a minimum of 3.3㎡ and the mean area of nurturing room per baby over three is 1.98㎡. For children care centers, facility area per baby is above a minimum of 4.5㎡, facility area is 160㎡ and the number limit of children is 35.

Referring to the suggestions of previous studies on space division, this study classifies space into education, service and management sections: - Education Area: Nurturing Room, Play Room, Siesta Room, and Dinning Room - Management Area: President Room, Counseling Room, Teachers Room, Nursery Room, Reception Room, Management Office, Gate and Steps - Service Area: Kitchen, Milk Room, Toilet, Washing Room, Library and Garage According to scale and characteristics of each facility, some of the rooms are intended for double use or are optionally used. In respect to plane space composition, the educational area of each center should have at least one nurturing room for babies, four nurturing rooms for infants, and a play room. There are two types of space composition: the one being the three sections divided by a corridor and the other being mixed style.

As facility standards of nurturing facilities in our country is poorly managed, if more nurturing facilities are opened, it will be harder to overcome the problems of nurturing environments. As current nurturing facilities and related regulations are based on minimum standards, we need more specific and developmental standards for qualitative improvement in physical environment.

It is suggested that there should be systematic research on facility standards such as analyses of space composition of children care centers within apartment complexes constructed by other companies, facility area of other construction companies, nurturing areas, and based on the results, specific standards of nurturing facilities should be prepared through sufficient speculation before construction.