Abstract
Korea is facing various social problems including single elderly household, increase in the number of disabled people and poverty rate and a difference in the proportion of males to females between urban areas and rural areas along with the advent of rapid aging society. Especially, the ratio of poor households in rural areas residing in housing which falls below the minimum housing level and most of them are in the dead zone of housing welfare. In addition, if it is impossible for them to move (relocate) to new housing, the house remodeling is the only measure for improving their housing welfare. However, we don't have enough prior relevant academic and practical experience, and house remodeling requires a series of process including prior planning construction and post-occupancy evaluation, but almost no fundamental research that provides relevant insight has been carried out. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to describe all field situations that occur in the whole customized house remodeling process for disabled female senior citizens living alone in a rural area. The remodeling process was classified into initial planning stage, field verification and adjustment stage and construction stage as the method to participate in the field directly, and any change in the remodeling plan and its causes at each stage were analyzed. As a result, some remodeling items were changed from the main viewpoint of participating parties before the beginning of construction and for reasons such as the deterioration level of housing site, limitation in building equipment and rearrangement of housing, etc., and the remodeling method and its details were developed. It was identified that constant change that occurred in the remodeling process resulted from 1) unique poor characteristics of existing housing and 2) physical condition of residents and their unique lifestyle characteristics that were two aspects required to be emphasized by customized remodeling.
