• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.70-81
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• 2016

Nowadays the preschool children spend much of the day playing indoors. Therefore, it needs the indoor environment that helps a variety of fun activities and physical development, and it requires the space configuration and playable furniture considering the emotional development for mental health. However, the furniture for fast growing preschoolers has not various types because the domestic furniture market for children is mostly baby beds and the furniture for the education of children. Therefore, this study presents the concepts and types of the playable furniture reflecting emotional design for preschool children's healthy emotion and suggests the most appropriate type of playable furniture considering play behavior by age. In this study, we investigated the physical, cognitive, social, emotional and linguistic development characteristics and play behavior of preschoolers, and derived the right type of playground equipment and furniture, and examined the types of playable furniture to help the emotional development. We derived the items to be checked for developing the playable furniture by age for emotional development, and classified preschoolers' playable furniture into the use of learning, relaxation and storage, and suggested its basic type focusing on the cases of various playable furniture developed at home and abroad. As a result, the playable furniture was divided into three types. The first is the self-play type making possible self amusement, the second is module built-up-type that consists of furniture and modules or units and creates various patterns and can be modified through the self-assembly and disassembly, and the third is IT game type grafting IT skills and a variety of electronic games to furniture. We sorted these types into three classes (1-3 years old, 4-5, 6-7) according to age and presented the type of play for each age, the play element and representative image that can be introduced to this furniture. In this study, we provided the basic design types of age-specific emotional playable furniture by analyzing these results.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.189-199
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• 2012

The interest and expenditure for children is increasing than in the past because the number of nuclear family is growing, the children's space is configured independently in most homes from infancy, therefore, the market of children's furniture is expanding in spite of the reduction in the population of children. There are not many products considering age, gender, and play behavior in children's furniture market in Korea. The bed, desk, chair, and closet for children under 2 years hold a large majority of children's furniture, there are not a lot of preschool children's furniture for the children aged 4 to 7. As the children aged 4 to 7 experience physical, emotional, and cognitive growth at the same time, the space configuration and furniture choice for these children is educationally very important. Therefore, in this study, we present the importance and necessity of playable furniture to promote the physical, social, emotional, linguistic, and cognitive development of the children aged 4 to 7 among preschool children. We found the concept and basic condition of playable furniture to collect the base data for developing playable furniture and provided the basic data for the development of an ideal playable furniture by comparing and analyzing the cases of 157 items of 14 domestic playable furniture companies and 365 items of 30 overseas in aspect of play functions, forms, materials and colors.