Scholarly Publications - Interior Architecture and Environmental Design

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/11693/115607

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Open Access
Architects and the architectural profession in the Turkish context
(Taylor & Francis Inc., 2004) Erman, Tahire; Altay, Burçak; Altay, Can
This article explores the social construction of the architectural profession in the Turkish context from a historical perspective. It investigates architects' views regarding their roles in society and their positions vis-à-vis their clients and users. The data from in-depth interviews conducted with twentyfour practicing architects demonstrate that both traces of elitism and the tendency to define their professional roles to affect people's lives through their designs have prevailed in architects' beliefs and actions to varying degrees.
Open Access
Creating mindful spaces educational practices for interior design
(SAGE Publications, 2023-11-02) Altay, Burçak
At the beginning of the day, in the cool of the early morning, as light and color are beginning to come back into the world, bring attention to the quality of inner space, the space in this room and the space in the world around us. Developing that attention, we notice the space that’s always here, the space around things, the space within things. This helps us to recollect, to awaken to the inner space, the space of our minds which receives and contains, which encompasses all thoughts, feelings, perceptions, moods (Amaro, 2020, p. 543).
Open Access
Designing for mindfulness and global public health: where inner awareness meets the external environment
(Springer New York LLC, 2024-03-24) Altay, Burçak; Porter, Nicole
In this paper, we offer a commentary on Oman’s article “Mindfulness for Global Public Health: Critical Analysis and Agenda” from the perspective of external environments, be they natural or built spaces. Utilizing the 14 domains of mindfulness and public health identified by Oman, we examine how spatio-environmental concerns are aligned, or have potential synergies with, these dimensions. We consider spatial and environmental qualities and relationships, for example, the presence of nature or a sense of safety, as supportive for public health and formal mindfulness practice, synthesizing a growing evidence base within environmental psychology and design literature. We highlight particular points of alignment, namely the impact of environments on mental health, stress, and attentional qualities. Potential synergies are evident where these domains seek to increase resilience and the sustainability of our planet, communities, and individuals, and through the increasing emphasis on designing places that offer inclusive access to, and direct involvement in, the creation of belief (spirituality) and culture-specific interventions. Although these domains offer the potential for greater holistic research and practice, more interdisciplinary research is needed to bridge gaps and bring this potential into the mainstream.
Open Access
Developing empathy towards older adults in design
(Routledge, 2017-02-06) Altay, Burçak
In design disciplines, an affective understanding of users’ everyday lives can increase designer sensitivity and awareness, leading to higher-quality design outcomes. Developing students’ empathic understanding within design education is required to accomplish this goal. This article discusses learning strategies that enhance students’ empathic horizons, and specifically analyzes an assignment conducted in an Interior Architecture and Environmental Design course, “The Grandparent Experience.” Here, exposure through observation and interviewing, and art-based methods are employed to develop students’ empathy towards older adults. We conducted a survey with students who completed the exercise and the course, exploring their perspectives on their learning. The results reveal that students had positive views on the assignment’s effectiveness regarding the learning outcome and learning process. Implications for empathic design education and educational gerontology are discussed.
Open Access
Educating the mindful design practitioner
(Elsevier, 2021-05-06) Altay, Burçak; Porter, N.
Mindfulness applications are increasing exponentially across many disciplines. However, mindfulness theory and practice within design pedagogy is relatively scarce. What are the operational concepts and applications of mindfulness for acquiring design skills and ethical awareness? We explore these questions through a theoretical framework and two university-based studies where design students engaged in various mindfulness activities. Results show that meditation practices (formal mindfulness) and adopting a mindful approach to design tasks (informal mindfulness) can facilitate exploratory and creative thinking, increase sensory and spatial awareness, ‘free up’ one’s inner critic, and expand students’ empathetic horizons. These outcomes suggest mindfulness training is fruitful for the holistic development of students, supporting them to be truly reflective practitioners who creatively attend to the wellbeing of others and themselves.
Open Access
Embracing student experience in inclusive design education through learner-centred instruction
(Routledge, 2016-03) Altay, Burçak; Ballice, G.; Bengisu, E.; Korkmaz, S. A.; Paykoç E.
This paper explores the process and outcome of using learner-centred methods to develop students’ empathic design abilities during an educational workshop on inclusive design. In the first section of the paper, we suggest the significance of incorporating inclusive design within the education of design disciplines. Then, we introduce a workshop on inclusive design awareness that architecture and interior design students participated, which applied various learner-centred methods. We discuss the process that incorporated project-based learning, role-playing/simulation and students’ reflections and feedback on their experience. The workshop process, the student project experience and students’ reflections on their learning indicate how multiple methods of learning engage students and enhance their empathic understanding so they can embrace differences and adopt a user-centred design approach. Based on the findings, we provide suggestions for similar educational events that can be applied in other disciplinary contexts. © 2016 Taylor & Francis.
Open Access
Exploring designers’ finishing materials selection for residential interior spaces
(2023-03-06) Altay, Burçak; Salcı, E.
The increasing diversity of materials creates many possibilities and constraints that designers have to consider when selecting materials for projects. While the literature has investigated materials selection in engineering, product, and architectural design, knowledge is still lacking in interior design. Accordingly, this study focused on interior finishing materials with three objectives: (1) explore the determinants of materials selection in interior design, and within the residential design context, (2) identify designers’ finishing material preferences and selection criteria for floors, walls, and ceilings; (3) investigate designers’ criteria prioritizations while selecting materials. For this we conducted one-to-one interviews with architects and interior designers specializing in residential spaces. We first explored their material selection considerations in general. Second, we documented their material designations in residential project entry halls they had designed along with their selection criteria. Third, we presented an entry hall of a residential space for them to choose the materials while we questioned them about their materials selection priorities. The results reveal that the main determinants of materials selection include material-related, project-related, and designer-related factors. Moreover, materials choices and selection criteria vary between surfaces in space. Finally, the designers give the most priority to sensorial properties and the least to ecological properties. These findings expand our knowledge about materials in interior design, enhance the knowledge base for materials education, and have implications for designers and manufacturers regarding selecting and designing finishing materials.
Open Access
Faces/Places
(Loughborough University, 2016) Altay, Burçak
This project was carried out by the author in the summer of 2001 in New York. It comprises episodes that entail the sketch of a specific place, two sketches of the city traveller at that location who volunteered to be sketched and the author’s journal entries on each episode following the experience. One sketch is kept by the participant and the other by the author, which is presented in this paper. Since the boundaries of the project are fluid, it is formed and re-formed through the unfolding of each encounter. This paper provides an inquiry into the encounter between self-other-environment created and transformed by the project.
Open Access
Inclusive design: developing students' knowledge and attitude through empathic modelling
(Routledge, 2014-06-26) Altay, Burçak; Demirkan, Halime
To enhance the function and quality of built environments, designers should consider all possible users in their design projects. Therefore, it is essential to incorporate inclusive design in the education of the design student. This study focuses on the educational objectives of and related learning activities in a course where inclusive design is one of the main subjects. Through empathic modelling, students' engagement with the course was enhanced. Within the course, students simulated disabled users while they experienced the campus environment using wheelchairs, crutches or blindfolds. Their experiences were reflected through descriptive texts and poster designs. Descriptive texts were analysed through developing themes and codes whereas posters were analysed through a content analysis method. Our findings showed that students developed their knowledge of inclusive design concerning the physical environment, the self and the social environment. They also developed immediate emotional responses and a positive attitude towards diversity and inclusion. Thus, empathic modelling supported the development of cognitive and affective learning domains of the novice designer, supporting inclusive design education.
Open Access
Multisensory experience of public interiors
(Routledge, 2021-10-07) Altay, Burçak
We experience interiors with all of our senses, by seeing, touching, hearing and smelling as well as through our bodily interactions and orientation. Moreover, our experience is not static; it changes through moment-to-moment encounters according to changing sensations, our activities, our intentions, etc. This results in pleasant, neutral and/or unpleasant feelings. Interior design education and practice should, therefore, include an understanding and awareness of these embodied interactions, particularly how they occur in everyday life. This study provides a multisensory perspective of everyday public interiors through the lived experiences of participants. This is accomplished through the visual and verbal reflective essays of students who mindfully observed and documented their bodily postures and sensory perceptions during different activities within a variety of public interiors, such as cafés, bookstores and retail spaces. A thematic analysis of the essays reveals not only the specific features of interiors that influence particular senses, but also how these in turn affect an individual’s feelings and level of comfort. The findings point toward the temporality of experience and embodied total experience, which should be considered more focally in design education and practice.
Open Access
Multisensory inclusive design education: a 3D experience
(Routledge, 2017-09-19) Altay, Burçak
Inclusive design should be an integral part of the curriculum in the education of environmental design disciplines, incorporating empathic understanding. Among the empathic methods that are employed, ‘build-to-learn’ that promotes experiential learning is effective in students’ multisensory and bodily engagement with the process and product. This paper discusses an exercise in a Human Factors/Ergonomics course in interior design where students create ‘A 3D Experience’. Analysis of exemplary work suggests various ways in which different senses may come forth into awareness to sometimes enrich and at other times limit embodied space, thus opening up a venue of inclusivity in novel and unpredictable ways. Research conducted on student perspectives reveals that the assignment had positive impact on their understanding and awareness of, and attitudes towards, inclusive design, as well as creative thinking.
Open Access
Progression of color decision making in introductory design education
(Wiley, 2017-04) Ertez Ural, Sibel; Akbay, S.; Altay, Burçak
Color comprises both subjective and objective aspects within its contextual nature. Research on color design tends to explore this seemingly contradictory concerns from theoretical point of view, as well as architectural and design practice. The aim of this study was to observe subjective, intuitive or heuristic and objective, knowledge‐based or analytical attitudes toward color in design education. In the study 84 introductory design students were surveyed progressively to understand their color decision criteria after completion of three 2‐dimensional colored exercises, specific in terms of color education. Students' responses to open‐ended questions were coded according to the 5 categories, under 2 decision making processes derived from the literature; heuristic approach: preferential and symbolic criteria, and analytic reasoning: formal, thematic, and systematic criteria. A distinction between associative and emotional aspects of symbolic criteria was also revealed by the data analysis. The findings showed a shift from heuristic responses to analytic reasoning, as expected. Additionally, it is also investigated that students not only used heuristic approaches but also analytical components (formal and systematic) of color decision making in varying degrees as well, even before any color subjects covered. Thematic color decisions became a major part of the students' design considerations upon completion of color subjects. The observed increase in the number of color criteria interrelated by the students' among almost all categories explicated a complex decision making process particularly in color design and education. These findings were expected to lead to some further understanding in color decision making in design.
Open Access
User-centered design through learner-centered instruction
(Routledge, 2014) Altay, Burçak
This article initially demonstrates the parallels between the learner-centered approach in education and the user-centered approach in design disciplines. Afterward, a course on human factors that applies learner-centered methods to teach user-centered design is introduced. The focus is on three tasks to identify the application of theoretical and methodological approach. The major instructional methods utilized in the tasks are role enactment, project-based learning, case-based learning and reflection. These tasks develop students' knowledge, attitude and skills reflecting on their selves, their social and physical environment. Finally, the results of the study on students' evaluations of the course and their learning are presented. The study findings indicate that the course has been successful in its learning objectives. Multiple methods of learner-centered instruction complement lecture sessions and one-another to enhance student learning of user-centered design in different levels of cognitive and affective domains.

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Browsing Scholarly Publications - Interior Architecture and Environmental Design by Author "Altay, Burçak"