Designed products work as a mediation between humans who use them. An object is created by and in a human society so the useful products reflect requirement of this society. And the characteristic behavior of the society is affected by the useful products.
The characteristic behavior might be considered as culture by Geert Hofstede’s theory, following him culture is ‘Mental Program-software of the mind’ which is learned and acquired in the society. In the concept of culture all the reactions of acknowledge, conviction, arts, morality and habits could be included.
Environment has formed characters of one society and the society has formed its characteristic cultural behaviors. Oppositely cultural behaviors make the characteristic products like environment and space products. It gives the idea that we can create cultural space by examining cultural characteristics.
However culture is too broad to be examined just with this idea. This research bases on the 5 cultural dimensions of Geert Hofstede to inspect cultural quality of Korea and the 10 cultural factors of Edward. T. Hall in order not to omit some part of cultural characters.
This study concentrates on the interior space of train. From April 2004, KTX which is originated from TGV of France began to roll in Korea. It is interesting that the same interior of train is used by two different cultures. The method to find out the special quality of transportation culture of Korea passed 5 steps like following; 1) making a questionnaire to understand general concepts 2) observation to make clear what are the special behaviors in the interior of train 3) comparison valuation with marking sheet of the interiors of KTX and HSR in order to find out which space Korean people prefer 4) comparison of behaviors in the interior of KTX and TGV 5) Interviewing and surveying the opinions of passengers of KTX.
With these methods it would be possible to seek out the characters, preferences and needs for the interior space of train. There were remarkable things like following; 1) importance of privacy from the other’s eyes 2) seriousness of individual seat because of the short term transportation 3) necessity of continuous information because of ‘Uncertainty Avoidance Culture’ 4) absence of moving 5) requirement of bright and comfortable interior like one’s inner room 6) preference to take a seat as a group with their friends or family due to ‘Collective Culture’ 7) self-defense and self-protection of one’s baggage because of ‘Uncertainty Avoidance Culture’.
With these discoveries this research suggests guidelines to design interior of train of Korea.
문화는 인간 공동체 내에서 생성되며 문화의 산물인 유용성의 산출(산업 제품들)은 공동체의 필요에 의해 만들어지고 또 역으로 만들어진 유용성의 산출이 인간 문화 생활에 영향을 미친다. 한 인간 공동체가 가진 문화에 적합한 철도 실내를 디자인을 하기 위해 철도 차량 실내의 문화적 요소와 그 내부에서 사물과 사람이 가지는 관계에 대해 살펴볼 필요가 있다.
