In the radically changing market situation, surface materials of student furniture are a very important element to decide the consumption pattern and the market price. Thus, this study examined the characteristics of surface materials by classifying the student furniture into children's, juniors', and seniors' furniture while accessing the features of such surface materials through Glulam, veneer, poly paper, finishing foil, high pressure melamine (HPM), and low pressure melamine (LPM), and PVC vinyl. When taking a look at the surface materials that were most frequently produced in each domestic furniture company, the combined materials that used more than 2 elements (31.88%), LPM (23.19%), and Glulam (20.29%) were introduced at the market in the order. Regarding the analysis made on colors, the combination colors took more than half (55.32%) followed by brown (13.83%) and beige (11.7%) in the order. Based on the results derived from the analysis, the study suggests to stress more importance to surface materials when developing student furniture and to exert efforts for the consistent development of new materials and quality improvement, as a way to accelerate the development of the furniture industry in Korea.

Communication has increasingly become important between peoples in the modern society. The change in the composition of a family brought by urbanization and industrialization caused structural changes in the society, and the lack of communication between people have incited various social conflicts rising from individualism and ego-centrism. Thus in this era, domestic environment is one of the most significant environment that enables one to transform into an appropriate member of the social community as well as develop appropriate traits of one. The living room, which served as an arena of communication for family members is now replaced with TV, a popular media, and has lost its original role in the house. The living room furnitures today are designed to facilitate people in viewing TV, not to enhance communication between family members. Thus in this research, I would like to propose a new concept of 'communication furniture' and various examples to suggest appropriate, desired role of living room furniture in households today. In addition, I hope this research contributes to forming a beneficial living room culture and a domestic environment as well as a heart-warming, human society.

The intention is to explore the differentiation or evolution of the chest of drawers in traditional Korean, Western, and Japanese furniture in order to know how the drawers currently becoming popular in Korea were developed historically. The Korean furniture centered in $Jang$, $Nong$, and $Bandazi$ used in the tradition generally, the Western furniture involved in drawers, and the Japanese furniture called $Tansu$ in Japanese called the chest of drawers were focused on the study because the Western and Japanese drawers affected the development of the chest of drawers in Korean furniture during the late 19th century and the Japanese Ruling Era, respectively. As a result, the Korean furniture was not shown the chest of drawers but only small drawers that store small items located in the upper part of $Jang$, $Nong$, and $Bandazi$ mostly used as wardrobe, while the traditional Japanese furniture developed from Edo period (1607-1868) had showed a wide variety of chest of drawers like $Isho-dansu$, $Mizuya-dansu$, $Kusuri-dansu$, $Cho-dansu$, $Funa-dansu$, $Kaidan-dansu$, $Nagamochi-dansu$, $Kuruma-dansu$, and so on, for specialized storage. And in the traditional Western furniture were presented the chest like a large-box form, mule chest, chest of drawers, cabinet, commode, highboy, tallboy, wardrobe, secretary drawer and bureau with document drawer invented and evolved throughout the 15th-18th century. Therefore, the chest of drawers in contemporary Korean furniture is supposed to adopt the Japanese and Western drawer form and to ensure the continual production from the obvious utility of the design with decoration for our current everyday lives.

In the present study the meaning of table in the Joseon dynasty period and also in the present age was researched, and its changing according to the times was searched as well. The results are as follows. First, the meaning of table in the Joseon dynasty period and in the present age has one thing, "laying something on table" in common from the functional aspect. Whereas the table in the Joseon dynasty period had the function of laying and keeping articles or decorations, that of the present age contributes to reading and doing office work of human beings and this exceeds the simple function to keep articles, because it touches parts of the human body, so it combines function of comfort accordingly, not only the function of storage. Second, it was differently presented from the aspect of shape. The table of the Joseon dynasty period strongly showed the shelf-like shape due to the set-up in layers, while the table of the modern times has the rectangle-like form in one layer. It has been transformed according to the functional changes. Third, it is different also from the constructive aspect. The table of the Joseon dynasty period had the construction with one panel on 4 legs in layer upon layer, but the table today has one upper panel on legs supporting it. Namely, the term "table" has been constantly used from the Josen dynasty period until today, but it has a totally different meaning according to the times on the basis of the changes in function and shape. In the furniture which maintains the function and shape of the square-typed table with 3 or 4 layers and the book table in the Joseon dynasty but is used under the different term in the present times it can be counted that display cupboard or bookshelf. Furthermore, desk and tea table can be regarded as furniture which exactly corresponds with the term "table" used in the present days, and also in the Joseon dynasty period there were furniture with such same function as like the writing table and small dining table.

These days global warming is the most important problem and the most important factor is high emission of carbon dioxide. The 23% of carbon dioxide emission for building construction must be reduced. Thermal conductivity is the most basic factor that can decrease the energy consumption especially insulation. Therefore, an accurate and continuous thermal conductivity measurement can be a way to save energy. In this paper, there are methods about how to investigate thermal conductivity measurements and comparing two methods which are the Heat Flow Meter 436 and TCi.

The purpose of this study were to analyze the species and tree-ring dates of coffin woods excavated at Yerim site in Yesan, Chungnam, Korea. We sampled 12 pieces of woods from two coffins. The species of all coffin woods were identified as red pine group, most likely, $Pinus$ $densiflora$. The last rings of both coffins were dated A.D. 1557 and A.D. 1601, respectively. The tree-ring dates indicated that the coffins were made in the late 16th and early 17th century.

Wood-anatomical studies on vines, one of the main materials for fork craftworks used in the past, were insufficient compared to those for trees. Therefore, it is important to identify the species of vines in order to preserve the vinery craftwork relics. In this study, the species of 31 samples (30 traditional baskets and one sculpture relic) obtained from Korea were identified. Twenty-two baskets among 30 baskets were identified as Cocculus trilobus DC, a perennial vine which has flexible xylem and thick fibers in phloem. The other baskets were identified as $Lespedeza$ spp., a shrub with tough xylem. The sculpture part was $Actinidia$ $arguta$ Planch., a perennial vine with chambered piths.