Interior Architecture Education Research Articles

Cooperative Learning in an Interior Architecture Studio

Design studio in interior architecture education is rarely conducted as a group learning activity, despite the benefits of preparing students for team-based industry work environments. Students have learnt to be protective of their design ideas and are not always encouraged to share resources, although theories on social learning indicate a deeper learning experience is achieved through collaboration. The theoretical framework for cooperative learning, as a form of collaboration, is extensive and positively supports the virtues of group work as an effective learning activity. This paper describes an action research cycle of preparation, implementation and reflection of a cooperative learning project with third year interior architecture students. For the purposes of this research, cooperative learning is defined as a structured group work activity, with participants working together towards a series of common objectives. The main objectives were for students to experience a typical interior architecture work environment, to promote deeper learning and foster a culture of sharing ideas and resources.

Neurocognitive responses to spatial design behaviors and tools among interior architecture students: a pilot study

The impact of emotions on human behavior is substantial, and the ability to recognize people's feelings has a wide range of practical applications including education. Here, the methods and tools of education are being calibrated according to the data gained over electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. The issue of which design tools would be ideal in the future of interior architecture education, is an uncertain field. It is important to measure the students’ emotional states while using manual and digital design tools to determine the different impacts. Brain-computer interfaces have made it possible to monitor emotional states in a way that is both convenient and economical. In the research of emotion recognition, EEG signals have been employed, and the resulting literature explains basic emotions as well as complicated scenarios that are created from the combination of numerous basic emotions. The objective of this study is to investigate the emotional states and degrees of attachment experienced by interior architecture students while engaging in their design processes. This includes examining the use of 2D or 3D tools, whether manual or digital, and identifying any changes in design tool usage and behaviors that may be influenced by different teaching techniques. Accordingly, the hierarchical clustering which is a technique used in data analysis to group objects into a hierarchical structure of clusters based on their similarities has been conducted.

İç Mekan Estetik Memnuniyetin Karşılaştırılması: İç Mimarlık Birinci Sınıf ve Üst Sınıf Öğrencileri Arasındaki Farklılıklar

The professions of interior architecture necessitate the integration of both aesthetics and functionality. Therefore, these concepts are deeply embedded in the university education process. The first step on this educational path is taking the basic design studio course which aims students to start developing critical and abstract thinking skills in the design process. It would contribute to the literature to examine how far students are able to develop their aesthetic evaluations in the first year of university education. Therefore, we conducted the study to investigate if there is a difference in aesthetic evaluations of interiors between students who have just started their interior architecture education and students who have completed their first year. Examining how students' aesthetic evaluations for interior design evolve over the course of their interior architecture education provides valuable insights into design education. The results illustrated that there is a significant difference between evaluations of aesthetic pleasure and novelty. The students who finished the first year have less aesthetic pleasure and novelty scores than the students who just started their university education. The first year of education may reduce aesthetic appreciation because basic design education aims to teach students to think critically.

A Workshop Example of Basic Design Education in Interior Architecture

The “Basic Design” is one of the common introductory courses in design disciplines. It has great importance in interior architecture education as it forms the basis of design practice. Education that proceeds through abstract concepts creates difficulties for students to internalize this course. To avoid these difficulties, learning by doing is of great importance. The learning-by-doing approach was carried out in the form of a workshop within the scope of the “Basic Design 1” course of the Department of Interior Architecture at Konya Technical University in the fall semester of the 2022-2023 academic year. Students were asked to produce three-dimensional designs using basic design principles and elements. The class was divided into groups of eight people and studies were carried out with a workshop coordinator in each group. The duration of the workshop was planned as four weeks. During the workshop, students learned to use materials and colors, to design an original composition. At the end of the workshop, students learned to embody the abstract concepts they learned during the year by creating a composition that considers functionality and aesthetics. In order to evaluate the efficiency of the workshop, a survey study was carried out after the course period ended. As a result, it has been seen that the intelligibility of Basic Design 1, which is a course taught through abstract concepts, has increased thanks to the workshop.

Digitally enhancing interior architecture education: Case of online building surveying class

Digitally enhancing interior architecture education: Case of online building surveying class

Basic design course through art-based research in interior architecture education

This article presents the basic design course applications based on the design education of first-year interior architecture students. This study aims to emphasize the importance of education in the design-oriented thinking process with practice through the content of the basic design course. Within the scope of the study, art-based research in interior architecture education was carried out and the intersections of its results are described. In the studio, basic design elements and principles were conveyed with the techniques commonly taught in schools and architectural movements were given to students as term papers for research. The study directs the student to create 2D and 3D compositions by combining the studies he/she has done during the term and the research assignment. The findings show that students can reflect on their research on architectural movements to new three-dimensional abstract spaces by combining them with basic design education. While grounding this reflection, design process of the students is based on form and elements without color. The results also show a significant correlation between students’ practices and Gestalt Principles. This article emphasizes the importance of applying basic elements and principles of design and being integrated with field-specific studies to achieve better results in design education. This study is an experimental and original studio product. With the basic design education given only in the first semester, the students were given examples to determine and understand forms and approaches without color knowledge, especially through basic principles, using architectural movements instead of abstract expression.

Spatial design outcomes of indoor soundscaping course as part of interior architecture education

Indoor soundscaping is a multi-disciplinary field that integrates, sound, user experience, and architecture. At its core, it has the potential to redefine any enclosed acoustic environment. It nor solely considers the theories and methods of architectural acoustics or depends only on noise management techniques, yet primarily focus on user, perception, expectation, and experience. Through this perspective, listening to spaces should be an active act of an interior architect; an awareness that should be gained during the early years of architectural education. The elective course with the same name, 'Listening to Spaces' has been offered to interior architecture students since 2015 at Çankaya University, Ankara, Turkey under the Department of Interior Architecture, with the aim of implementing an important additional topic specific course to the present education curriculum of the Department as the course combines architectural, spatial and functional analysis methods from an acoustical perspective, in order to raise awareness on conscious listening of spaces with different functions. The course is conducted through interactive learning bases and the orientation is more research-based than teaching-based, although basic acoustical and soundscape theoretical knowledge is given. Students are expected to accomplish 6 tasks progressively following the cognitive processing dimensions parallel to Bloom's taxonomy. The outcomes of the tasks and the final spatial design proposals has been evaluated and discussed as part of this study to highlight the importance of topic specific course integration to architectural design education.

Metaphorical Approach in Interior Architecture Education

In this study, the project studio, which is the foundation of interior design education, has been designed using the metaphor method, one of the intellectual methods applied in education. The metaphor method is a technique used to make difficult-to-understand abstract concepts concrete and helps design students develop their critical thinking and creative skills. In this case, design, which is the verbalized form of abstract thought, is limited to an object and the responsibilities brought by this object. From this point of view, an experimental study of metaphorical methods for establishing spatial relations of objects was carried out in a 14-week design studio with the 2nd year students of the Department of Interior Architecture, Faculty of Architecture and Design, Selcuk University. The purpose of the studio work is to draw the boundaries of interior architecture students in their search for solutions to design problems, and to enable them to come up with creative designs while making functional and formal decisions. In this context, a metaphorical approach was used in the context of object-space relations to guide students’ formal decisions in the functional solutions of the problems that arise in the interior design process. After working in the studio, the students have developed a working doctrine that will guide their interior design studio projects using the designed method, allow them to create unique forms and shapes, enable them to translate abstract ideas into concrete space and make it possible for them to design at various scales, from equipment to space design. The method is at a level that will set an example for students, designers and academicians working in the design discipline.

Between Education & Profession: An Evaluation of Graduation Projects in the Field of Interior Architecture in Turkey

Design studios are at the core of architecture, interior architecture, or design education. Different design problems are experienced and solved in these studios every term or year. The last step of the design studios is the graduation/degree project, which is characteristic of a threshold between education and profession. The scope of the study is to examine the graduation/degree projects’ approaches of the schools that are providing interior architecture education in Turkey and to evaluate their project outputs. Thus, quantitative analyses and qualitative evaluations have been made on the documents of the MEKAN/İç Mimarlık Öğrencileri Ulusal Bitirme Projeleri Yarışması (Interior Design Students National Graduation Projects Competition), which are served as an important archive. In this respect, within the scope of the study, an inventory has been tried to be put forward by evaluating the competition processes through the participant projects between 2012-2021. Firstly, an analysis has been made on the numerical distribution of all the participant projects according to the years and the diversity of the participating schools. Then, more detailed analyses have been carried out on the award-winning projects by narrowing the sample group. In addition, developments in the matters of the perspectives of different schools on design problems, their proposals for solutions, their design representations, etc. have been brought to light. As researchers and educators, it has been tried to open a way for how interior architecture education to reconstruct itself in the future, by rethinking the education itself.

Editorial “ICMEK-5 Rethinking” special issue

Nowadays, we are in a period of rapid changes that affect the theory and practice of interior architecture education, as in all other fields. Especially, in terms of the actors that form the basis of professional training, a more visible transformation is exhibited in the dimensions of education programs, design approaches, and transfer process with the effects of changing social dynamics. For this reason, it is important to discuss the versatility of education on an academic platform in interior architecture, as it is in all design-oriented disciplines. The "International Congress of Interior Architecture Education" (ICMEK), the first of which was held in 2007 at Istanbul Technical University, was later held in 2012, 2015, and 2017, hosted by the Department of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design of Istanbul Kultur University has contributed to the discipline as a national platform with the extent of participation and bringing together scientists who think and research on interior architecture education. The congress, which plays a role in the development of interior architecture education with different themes, was held in 2022 as an international scientific event. Organized in partnership with Istanbul Kültür University and Karadeniz Technical University, the "5th ICMEK International Congress of Interior Architecture Education" tried to shed light on new dynamics and future projections in interior architecture education at an international level. In this sense, the theme of the 5th ICMEK, which aims to discuss interior architecture education and present various suggestions for its future, has been determined as "rethinking". Researchers involved in interior architecture education or practice were invited to question the past and the present, think about the future, and produce within the framework of theory-practice-history, teacher-learner, undergraduate-graduate, formal-informal, curriculum-process, face-to-face-online, physical infrastructure-technological infrastructure, interdisciplinary interaction-continuous professional education, digitalization, ethics and many more, through the congress. In the congress, which was held online on 16-17 June 2022, in addition to twenty-one paper presentations, four guest speakers who are the leading names in the field from abroad,

The Effect of Three-Dimensional Drawing on Learning Construction Detail Design in Interior Architecture Education

In the construction of the built environment, detailing is an important and inseparable part of the whole construction information. Giving practical construction information to interior architecture students is undoubtedly an important part of interior architecture education. Along with general building information, materials and detailing are included in the curricula of many interior architecture departments to strengthen students’ understanding of interior architecture practice. On the other hand, the detailing solution should be considered as a design-decision model to create design alternatives according to the building elements and material properties. The aim of this study is to show that structural and detailing problems should be considered in a holistic framework with the design in interior architecture education. The sub-purpose of this study is to show that the use of three-dimensional drawing techniques in interior architecture construction-detail education is effective in increasing a student’s ability to notice and learn building details. This study focuses on the use of three-dimensional drawing techniques in interior architecture education and the application-oriented solution of structural and detail problems. As a result, the method of the study suggests some design-decision modeling guidelines that will lead to better detail design-decision solutions for interior architecture students.

The Importance of Virtual Reality Applications in Interior Architecture Education

İçmimarlık eğitiminde tasarım stüdyo derslerinin içerikleri incelendiği zaman bu derslerin bölümün temelini oluşturduğu görülmektedir. Stüdyo derslerinde öğrenciler; konsept tasarımı, mekân kurgusu, malzeme, yapı sistemi, ince yapı, mobilya, doku, ışık, ses gibi içmimarlık disiplini altındaki birçok konuyu ele aldıkları proje tabanlı bir eğitimden geçerler. Bu derslerden elde edilen çıktıların yanı sıra dönem içerisindeki tasarım süreci ve aşamaları da büyük öneme sahiptir. Günümüz tasarım anlayışı dijitalleşme aşamasını tamamlamış, bununda ötesine geçerek sanal gerçeklik ve kurgu mekânlar üzerinde varlığını ve baskısını hissettirmeye başlamıştır. İçmimarlık gibi tasarım ve proje odaklı bölümlerin çağın gerekliliklerine ayak uydurması ve gelecek talepleri karşılanabilmesi, öncü ve geleceği tasarlayabilen bireyler yetiştirebilmesi amacı ile sanal gerçeklik uygulamaları tasarım stüdyo derslerinin kurgularında yer alması gerekliliği doğmuştur. Bu çalışma kapsamında mevcut içmimarlık proje derslerinin araç ve gereçleri, amaçları, çıktıları sorgulanmakta, içmimarlık proje temelli tasarım stüdyosu derslerine sanal gerçeklik uygulamalarının dâhil edilmesinin gerekliliği vurgulanmakta ve eğitime katkıları ortaya konulmaktadır.

UZAKTAN EĞİTİM SÜRECİNDE İÇ MEKAN VE MOBİLYA TARİHİ II VE PERSPEKTİF DERSİ KAPSAMINDA ÖĞRENME ÇIKTILARI VE ÖĞRENCİ MOTİVASYON DEĞERLENDİRMESİ: ESTÜ İÇ MİMARLIK ÖRNEĞİ

Toplum sağlığını etkileyen COVID-19 pandemisi toplumsal yaşamın kısıtlanmasına neden olmuştur.
 Yüz yüze başlayan eğitim, alınan önlemler sebebiyle mevcut eğitimin çevrimiçi ortamlarda yürütülmesi
 anlamını taşıyan acil uzaktan öğretim modeliyle devam etmiştir. İç mimarlık eğitiminde de internet tabanlı
 uzaktan eğitim modeline geçilmiş ve müfredatlarında yer alan kuramsal dersler ile uygulamalı dersler internet
 tabanlı yürütülmeye devam etmiştir. Bu süreçte öğrenenlerin yürütülen derslere karşı motivasyonlarının
 olması, derslerin öğrenme çıktılarının kazanımları açısından önemlidir. Araştırmada 2019-2020 Bahar
 Döneminde yüz yüze eğitimle başlayan ancak küresel salgın nedeniyle Acil Uzaktan Öğretim kapsamında
 uzaktan eğitim ilkeleriyle yürütülen dersler ele alınmıştır. Kuramsal olarak İç Mekân ve Mobilya Tarihi II,
 uygulamalı olarak Perspektif derslerinin öğrenme çıktıları ve motivasyon düzeyleri üzerinden incelenmesi
 amaçlanmıştır. Her iki ders çevrimiçi platformlar yardımıyla yürütülmüştür. Kuramsal ders kapsamında
 öğrenenler araştırma yapmaya teşvik edilmiştir. Elde edilen veriler üzerinden tartışma ortamı yaratılmıştır.
 Uygulamalı derste ise görerek ve yaparak öğrenme ortamı yaratabilmek amaçlanmıştır. Farklı öğrenme araçları
 olarak ders anlatımı, videolar, föyler, uygulama çizimleri paylaşılarak öğrenme süreçleri desteklenmiştir.
 Araştırma, nitel ve nicel veri toplama araçları kullanılarak karma yöntem ile desenlenmiştir. Açıklayıcı
 (explanatory) desen ile çalışma kapsamında toplanan nicel veriler nitel verilerle desteklenmiştir. Elde edilen
 veriler doğrultusunda pandemi sürecinde uygulanan ders işleme yöntemlerinin kuramsal ve uygulamalı
 derslerde olumlu sonuç verdiği ortaya çıkmıştır.

Atelier experiences in interior architecture education: Zero waste approaches

Workshops, seminars, ateliers, and charrettes, which are vocational courses and extracurricular activities taken outside of the studio courses, support studio education to a great extent. The "learning by doing" model gains significance in 21st-century interior architecture education. In this context, the application model of two workshops/ateliers held at different times within the scope of the study will be reviewed. The first of these consists of the Zero Waste Approach in Design Education Training Workshop-1, which was held face-to-face and organized by the Hacettepe University Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design in 2019, and the second, the Zero Waste Approach in Design Education Training Workshop-2, held online in 2021. From the study, participation in workshops and ateliers in interior architecture education boosts students' awareness, supports group work, increases synergy and motivation, and strengthens their design skills. The cooperation of institutions, on the other hand, expands the interaction and provides important contributions to interior architecture education.
 
 Keywords: Atelier; Interior Architecture; Learning by Doing; Workshop; Zero Waste.

Message from the Editor in Chief

Dear reader,
 We are elated to present to you Volume 9, Number 1, 2022 issue of the Selected Papers of the 14th World Conference on Educational Sciences (WCES-2022), which was held online from the 3rd to the 5th of February 2022, in Paris, France. This issue aimed to present the papers that were selected from the myriad number of submissions made in the conference, related to educational breakthroughs and sciences, amidst the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
 After review, 7 papers were selected. These papers were authored by researchers from Kazakhstan, Turkey, Iran, Cyprus, Slovenia, and Germany. The selected papers include the following: Scientific concept development in early childhood through the lens of “over-development”; The need for academic writing: An online in-service training for academicians; The impact of higher education students’ personality traits on susceptibility to specific gamification elements; Popularization of physical activity in rural schools of Kazakhstan's Aktobe region; Linked List Implementation “Online learning”; Comparison of BA and MA students' attitudes toward virtual education; Atelier experiences in interior architecture education: Zero waste approaches.
 Dear reader, this issue would not have been possible without the massive input from our researchers, editorial board, and publishing team. We would therefore like to extend our gratitude to all who contributed to making this publication a success.
 Dear reader, enjoy reading!!
 
 Best Regards
 Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jesus Garcia Laborda, University of Alcala, Spain
 (Editor in chief)

Simulation software in interior architecture education with competency-based approaches from experts’ perspectives

Simulation software in interior architecture education with competency-based approaches from experts’ perspectives

EVALUATING THE ROLE OF PINTEREST IN EDUCATION AND THE PROFESSION OF INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE

The number of social media platforms that influence interior architects are increasing and Pinterest is one of these instruments. Parallel to the increased use of Pinterest among designers and students, there is concern about pros and cons of this platform for education and profession of interior architecture. This study aimed to understand if interior architecture instructors, students and professional are engaged with Pinterest and how they evaluate the role of this platform for the profession and education of interior architecture. Accordingly, this study offers a theoretical framework that would underline the opportunities and threats of using Pinterest as a designer. In this scope, data was collected from 225 students, 30 instructors and 50 interior architects. Comparing the findings showed that while most of the students and instructors find Pinterest useful for education of interior architecture, the number of interior architects who believed Pinterest presented disadvantages for the profession of interior architecture were higher that those who found Pinterest useful. Results claim that educating both students and instructors about the dynamic role of the social media in transferring the teaching materials, collaborative learning and efficient academic interaction could enhance the integration of online media development and education. Findings from this study contribute to the existing literature on the role of social media on design-oriented education and professions. Keywords: Pinterest, interior architecture education, interior architecture profession, design, research

Resilience in interior architecture education: Distance universal design learning in the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected all levels of education all over the World. In Turkey, on March 16, 2020, the decision of distance education was taken in higher education sharply. This necessity had caused urgent adaptation to the distance education process, which resulted in changing the courses’ curriculums in parallel with the emergence of new teaching and learning strategies especially in applied programs such as interior architecture. This process has tested the ‘resilience’ of the education system explicitly. Resilience means an ability of a community, system, or individual to ‘adapt’ and ‘transform’ in the case of varied facts causing any disruptive situation in the existing system. The pandemic has taught the education community about ‘adaptation’ and ‘transformation’ through implementing diverse learning tools and responses to complex circumstances, especially in applied courses. With the end of the pandemic, the instructors experiencing the face-to-face education environment anew will sustain it with the lessons from the pandemic undoubtedly. This study aims to discuss the concept of ‘resilience’ with its basic dimensions, ‘adaptation’ and ‘transformation’, in interior architecture education by focusing on the experiences, limitations, and potentials experienced in the distance education process. It specifically dwells on teaching and learning experiences of Universal Design (UD) course conducted in the Department of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design, Atılım University, Ankara in the 2020 Spring term when the first and urgent adaptation to distance education had been experienced. The evaluation process is supported with the obtained qualitative data, with results suggesting that all students gained useful insights by experiencing multiple dialogue environments in various ways of learning into how they can incorporate inclusivity into future designs. This study displays that it is crucial that the distance UD learning process open to interactive dialogue among students, experts, instructors, and users to design inclusive spaces welcoming all people without discrimination. It argues that there have been potential improvements about adaptation and transformations of educational approaches within the pandemic, but in interior architecture education as applied design education, the importance and necessity of experiential learning in bodily and collective communication has been deeply proven.

Designing a concept store: an interdisciplinary design process

The aim of this study is to introduce a design method for interior architecture education that would lead the students through the stages of the development of their projects. The design process is structured into five stages: concept development; spatial development; technical drawings and physical model; detailing and three-dimensional representation; finalization. The second goal is to adopt an interdisciplinary approach to stimulate creative thinking. Therefore, in this project interior architecture was related to several aspects of retailing and branding during the design process of a concept store. The proposed method has encouraged the formation of conceptual ideas in response to a defined design problem. By integrating interior architectural problems with retailing concepts, students have learned to analyze, research, devise design ideas, and transfer ideas into spatial compositions. This led to creative design solutions and diverse design approaches. The organization of the semester into stages has guided the students to approach the design problem gradually and to explore design solutions parallel to their conceptual ideas. By the end of the semester, the students were able to comprehend their progress along the design stages and to benefit from the interdisciplinary approach. Findings may be beneficial for students, design educators and designers interested in design process, interdisciplinarity processes, and designing retailing concept stores. The developed method may be used to provide students with structured design process skills.

Computer Aided Drawing Programs in Interior Architecture Education

Interior architecture education has displayed much variability from the past to the present day. Additionally, computer-aided drawing systems have become an irreplaceable part of interior architecture education, as in all other design disciplines. The contribution of computers in education to the design process has created a process of, Hand drawing – Design – Design in computer environment – Product – Prototype. Currently, traditional drawing methods are used much less. Computer-aided drawing programs in universities display differences in terms of models and content. Additionally, the year and semester in which these lessons are taught are different in every university. In this context, this study deals with computer-aided drawing lessons in a total of 63 programs in 31 interior architecture departments and 32 interior architecture and environmental design departments in Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus linked to the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) currently. This research was completed with the screening model. Data collection started in October 2020 and was completed at the end of 15 days. Screening was performed to learn which programs are taught in the programs in interior architecture and interior architecture and environmental design departments in different faculties. The software features of these programs were analyzed. The results of the study revealed the similarities of the different programs to each other.