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This study traced the architectural, urban and social characteristics of the Bugok Railway Official Residences (BRORs) in South Korea. It also explored the modern elements of Western (or Japanized Western) or traditional Korean characteristics embodied in the BRORs in the modernization process of Korea in the early 20th century.

Through literature reviews, field trips and archive investigation, this study uncovered new critical facts concerning the origin of the BRORs’ construction plan and architectural characteristics.

The BRORs’ value can be described as follows. First, the BRORs are the first modern housing complex in the Uiwang region. Second, they are meaningful as a housing area built during the Japanese colonial period, and many houses were concentrated in the center of a large city. Third, each official residence shows that various phenomena (mass production, standardization, efficiency and so on) are concentrated in buildings from premodern to modern period. Finally, the image of a group residential complex about to be demolished due to redevelopment is recorded in detail.

In the 1940s, the Railway Bureau of the Japanese Government-General of Korea planned a new small-scale town where mainly railway workers would live. The BRORs in Sam-dong, Uiwang were the first-phase plan. Specifically, 200 households in 100 buildings (two households per building) were built in 1943 during the end of the Japanese colonial period. After the liberation in 1945, these residences were made available to the general public and only 27 households remained through modification and renovation. The remaining residences will be demolished in 2023.

This research examined the meaning of the BRORs, which had not previously been researched in-depth, from diverse perspectives; accordingly, the basic research required for sustainable archiving can be performed after demolition using the study data.

This study aims to characterize the properties of natural cellulose fiber from the pseudo-stems of the curcuma zedoaria plant.

The fiber was extracted using the biological retting process (cold-water retting). The intrinsic fiber properties obtained were used to evaluate the possibility of using fiber for textile applications.

The average length of a curcuma zedoaria fiber was 34.77 cm with a fineness value of 6.72 Tex. A bundle of curcuma zedoaria fibers was comprised of many elementary fibers. Curcuma zedoaria had an irregular cross-section, with the lumen having a varied oval shape. Curcuma zedoaria fibers had tenacity and elongation value of 3.32 gf/denier and 6.95%, respectively. Curcuma zedoaria fibers had a coefficient of friction value of 0.46. Curcuma zedoaria fibers belong to a hygroscopic fiber type with a moisture regain value of 10.29%.

Extraction and Characterization of Curcuma zedoaria Pseudo-stems Fibers for Textile Application.