Graduation projects within interior architecture education in Turkey: Limits, possibilities, prospects

Abstract

Graduation project in interior architecture education is the final step in which candidates use the theoretical knowledge they acquired throughout their bachelor’s education and create solutions in the face of the most comprehensive design problems. It is the threshold for interior architect candidates who will participate in interior architecture professional practice. This study questions interior architecture education in Turkey through a thorough investigation of the graduation projects of universities and creates a framework within different approaches and common tendencies between departments. In the first phase of the research, a comprehensive data collection was made from the Turkish Higher Education Council Database, competition booklets of the MEKAN Competition, the web pages as well as YouTube and Instagram accounts of the interior architecture departments of the universities in Turkey. In the second phase, content analysis was conducted by three independent researchers through deciphering the transcripts of in-depth interviews with 13 selected academics. A total of 374 minutes of video recording was converted into texts. “System and Resources”, “Competence” and “Context” were collected from the deciphering of these interviews with academics with qualitative coding. The mutual aspects of the academics’ discourses were grouped to provide a concrete structure of different perspectives and insights on graduation projects and interior architecture education in Turkey. Together with the graduation projects, interior architecture education in Turkey is evaluated collectively by using these mutual themes. Limits, possibilities, and prospects which are derived from the findings are presented via recommendations towards the education of interior architecture in Turkey.