A Social Responsibility Design Project for Child-Friendly Interiors Available to Purchase

Interior design is a process which collaborates different approaches, strategies, methodologies and practices. This study is a social responsibility project which had been conducted under the supervision of the author and the authorities of The Educational Volunteers Foundation of Turkey (TEGV). The purpose of this project is to investigate how effective the integration of knowledge-based sessions and research-project development phases, while trying to increase students’ motivation. The project had been rejenerated twice, in 2014 and 2015 spring terms, during which the visual research method was photographing, computer modelling, interviews with authorities and children. In regard to the mission of the foundation, twenty-eight interior design students (in 2014 spring term) and seventeen students (in 2015 spring term) developed concept sheets, prepared design proposals, presented and submitted them to the authorities. This paper is a brief discussion and evaluation on the design process which may help to provide a base for similar social responsibility projects. Design proposals in the study may also help to identify new research questions such as whether/how changes in social, physical and cognitive concerns may influence the psychological reactions to educational activity centers and how such impacts may help enhance the affective quality in designs where necessary. In the project, each project team was asked to develop a concept map and to identify the most important words. It was recorded that all groups used “children” as the main keyword in their concept maps. Hence, the most frequently referred terms in the concept maps were grouped, analysed and interpreted, which can also be defined as the “concept map” of the project. Another concrete outcome of the study was the encouragement of students, they got involved in the design process equally. They were honoured by “TEGV social responsibility certificates” which supported their awareness and motivation to the design process as well.