Korean funeral culture has been influenced by historical aspect and shaped through a long time that established cultural tradition of Korean style funeral and became cultural tradition of Korean people. However, as the society be modern, the Korean fu... Korean funeral culture has been influenced by historical aspect and shaped through a long time that established cultural tradition of Korean style funeral and became cultural tradition of Korean people. However, as the society be modern, the Korean funeral culture, Confucian funeral rites, has been gradually changed, and burial, main Confucian funeral rites rules, has been substituted with cremation. This change first appeared at Japanese colonial era with the Healthy Family Rite Standards, and the hygienic factor that cremation provides, simpler process, reasonable price, easier maintenance, and more increased cremation rate. Rate of cremation in 2014 was 79.2%, four times greater than 20.5% in 1994, and it grows every year. In addition, cremation rate in Seoul, Busan, Incheon, Ulsan, Kyeongnam distric, and etc. is already over 80%, and there are problems; shortage of cremation facility – actually not many local governments has the facility in their region-, long distance trip to use the facility, over charged price, and etc., which probably increase now and more. It is a natural next step to build more cremation facilities to accommodate increasing inquiry on cremation. In this study, we selected 10 domestic cremation facilities and compared and analyzed factors to develop the theoretical content of theoretical consideration on Korean funeral culture, standard and program of cremation facility, space composition, necessity of supply and current condition of operation of cremator, and more. From the result, we suggest facility standard and structure model as reasonable and systematic standard for the future. The conclusion is as follows. First, a crematory facility consists of 5 functional areas such as cremation space, ritual space, waiting space, administrative space and public space. Each functional area consists of 14 detailed areas and 55 required rooms. To make a more reasonable construction plan, when listing functional areas and required rooms at the early stage of the plan, based on the course of the ritual, the factors, such as each program’s spatial characteristic and operational plan, must be considered in various ways to flexibly adjust detailed required rooms. Second, a crematory facility, as a facility for urban planning, must be constructed according to the municipality’s well-established operational system and plan to improve the convenience of public. Currently, since there is no clear standard to construct a facility, each facility has a broad discretion for its operational program, system, size, and cremation size. However, a crematory facility must be constructed in the contemplation of the increasing demand for cremation and its connection with other areas for its extension. Also, current statutes, such as The Act on the Funeral, Building Act, Local Government Act, must reflect it. Third, the researched facility has placed the spaces based on the course of cremation. Most facilities have placed them similarly. The facilities’ core functional areas for its cremation are the cremation and ritual spaces. When it comes to other functional areas, such as waiting space, administrative space and public space, their detailed rooms can be placed flexibly. The placement of the spaces must base on the course of cremation, and must consider not only the movement of corpse, but also customers’ safety and the facility’s security. Fourth, a crematory facility must consider three circulation; the circulation of (1) corpse, (2) family and condolers and (3) administrators. These circulation make the placement of the spaces complex. Thus, zoning must be obvious to facilitate the circulation, and security and administrative areas must exist between two areas to control the movement of family and condolers. Also, in the detailed plan for the cremation space, zoning must separate the circulation of those administrators to move the corpse and other administrators to maintain the facility. Fifth, as explained above, the comparison of a crematory facility’s each area’s size shows that the proportion of public space is very high. Also, the comparison and analysis of the researched facility and the Suwon Yeonhwa Funeral Hall show that while a facility focused on the cremation itself in the past, given a facility constructed after 2010 greatly extended its gross floor area and public space regardless of its cremator, a newly constructed facility focuses on the deceased’s family. Thus, in a new facility, the size of the public space would affect those of the other areas, and in calculating each area’s required size, the facility must predict the demand for creation, and consider the period to stay in it and its operational plan. Sixth, based on the explanation above, I suggest that the size of a crematory facility’s each area be as follows; cremation space 25%, ritual space 5%, waiting space 5%, administrative space 25%, and public space 40%. Also, I suggest that the gross floor area of each facility be 6,000㎡~8,000㎡. With these suggestions, a crematory facility would be operated systematically and reasonably. Cremation facility is an urban planning facility that local governments are ought to manage with methodical operation system and plans for convenience of public. Specific standards for cremation facility does not exist yet that rules on operation programs, system, scale, cremator, and more are flexible. However, it is essential to consider preparation and plans for future demand on cremation, connectivity with other area due to expansion of cremation facility, and etc. For the facility to be more actual and practical, we established architectural standard and suggested basic data for domestic cremation facilities in the future from the average value of space composition, type, space, route, and etc. that we drew from analysis of 10 cremation facilities in Korea to expect more definite and clear plans for better funeral culture.
|
