INAR 357 SOCIAL&CULTURAL FACTORS in INTERIOR ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
Meets: 14:40– 16:40, Monday
Instructor: Assist Prof. Dr. Z. Ezgi HaliloÄŸlu Kahraman
E-mail: ekahraman@cankaya.edu.tr
Telephone: +90 312 2844500/215
Interior design covers not only technical subjects but also non- technical subjects as sociology, anthropology, human factors, and human and social psychology as well. Any building must fulfill the requirements of the user and the society’s expectancies. One can understand these effects through analysis of existing, historical, social and cultural environment.
There are many factors affecting the design and construction of built environment. One of them is factor of human decision and behavior. In real life situation interior architects eventually confronts with the customer-client, users, worker group, administrative people, and their colleagues. The behavior of human being is affected by some psychological desires according to Maslow. Maslow’s psychological law of human behavior states that:
Need theory of Maslow (1954):
- Physiological need: hunger, thirst ...
- Safety needs: security, stability and order
- Belongingness and love needs: affection, affiliation and identification
- Esteem needs: prestige, success, and self-respect
- Need for self actualization – need to develop the full potentials of the person
Maslow’s need schedule would help us to understand the formation of our manmade physical environment. All social groups starting from the primitive tribes to nations or countries have certain type of art form. It is a certain instinct that man always tries to express his feelings of his surrounding mainly the things which makes a great impact to his life.
Other affects are function, laws of design, Gestalt, and Basic Design rules all happened to affect design/our built environment from the very beginning. Therefore physiology and psychology of human being are the basic components of effecting factors of our built environment.
Human being is a social being at the some time and its social setting and cultural background would affect the above needs. From this perspective the people who are using, who are ordering it to be built, and the people who are designing and building it would affect all interior spaces.
Interior architecture which is art and architecture of interiors, demonstrates differences from societies to societies, and of course from a certain time period to another time period. Interior architecture deals with spaces, organization and structure of spaces, interior finishes, color combination, ornamentation, furniture, lighting and lighting elements, fabric, carpets and accessories and other related details and of course physical and environmental factors. How art starts, difference of art and artisan works and the reason of existence of aesthetics of art, architecture and interiors of certain environment/culture will all be examined and discussed within the scope of this course.
Also human behavior and its effect on design will be discussed in varieties of building types. Such as behavior of human being in residential environments, commercial, educational, cultural, entertainment, recreational and health facilities’ environments besides many other, by concentrating on social and cultural background of the users and their psychological needs.
In fact, the course is designed for two terms but due to the shortage of time the subjects are squeezed in a semester course. Within the course how a design problem must be approached and definition of social factors, human behavior, human experience (perceive, construe, evaluate, use, and sustain) about his/her surroundings, social psychology and culture with their effect on built environment will be discussed. The course aims to give students an understanding of the complex interrelationships between physical settings and users (individuals and groups who interact with the settings), and between physical setting and social and cultural factors. It also seeks to give students an understanding of how to generate that knowledge through various research and analytical research tools and to establish design guidelines for the design. Course will be conducted through lectures, surveys, analysis and discussions with presentations.
This course has theoretical, methodological and practical contributions to design students. First, it is designed to cover all of these real life aspects and to furnish students with theoretical background in above subjects to prepare them to their future professional life. The absence of such knowledge would directly affect the performance of the student adversely. Second, this course attempts to give a brief understanding on researching, data gathering and reporting techniques. Last, it stands on the premise of improving students’ skills in the processes of working collaboratively towards liberating outcomes, working both as a stakeholder and as a facilitator. Though these contributions, this course would be a necessity for the students who would practice as a designer in their professional life and as a researcher in their academic life.