노인 부엌환경의 디자인 고려사항

A Study on the Design of the Kitchen Environment for the Elderly- Focused on the Safety Accident -

In Korean kitchens of the 21st century, cooking environments that put emphasis on safety are defenselessly exposed, with the development of diverse functions and the changes of users and it is leading to a rapid increase in safety accidents in kitchens. Especially, the weak and the vulnerable, including the aged experience more severe injuries from safety accidents than normal adults and they are easily exposed to accidents. According to the consumer injury surveillance system (CISS) of Korea Consumer Agency, kitchen accidents among the aged occu-py over 7% of total accidents in houses and those accidents are more frequent among senior people aged 65 to 70 at the time of independence. Therefore, it is urgently needed to develop interior and furniture designs that can deal with safety accidents in kitchens among the aged. This study was designed to make a contribution to the development of safe kitchen environ-ments for the aged by examining the correlation between kitchen interior elements and kitchen furniture, in terms of safety accidents in kitchens among the aged and analysing design consid-erations to deal with safety accidents. To achieve the study purpose, the data of Korea Consumer Agency and literature related to the aged, designs, housing and furniture were collected to ana-lyse design considerations and types of risk to the aged and understand the correlation. As a re-sult, we presented a design guide for the elderly kitchen environment. It has been shown that most items in the kitchen environment had a high relationship with accessibility and that older people should consider the characteristics and safety of their storage and workstation more. The design guide for the elderly kitchen environment presented by this study could be used as a ref-erence guide before detailed design of the elderly kitchen environment. In conclusion, it is an-ticipated that this study would help in cutting down accidents in houses among the aged by suggesting improvements for safety kitchen environments.