Interior Design Education in the Context of Climate Change: A Systematic Assessment of Existing Capacity in Türkiye

Abstract

The increase in the global mean temperature leads to the climate change events we experience today. To limit global warming at +1.5-2°C, actors of the built environment -who are responsible for 40% of the greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere- along with their institutions and authorities, should act. However, recent studies indicate that the awareness level of actors from the interior design field on their role in climate action is lower than that of other built environment-related disciplines. Nevertheless, higher education institutions that are dealing with complex, abstract concepts such as climate change itself, more often than other educational institutions, are thought to have a significant role in this awareness issue since awareness can be boosted by knowledge and learning. Yet, the nexus of design education and climate change in Türkiye has not been well-studied. However, assessing the existing capacity of individuals, institutions, and entities can provide guidance to cope with the impacts of climate change. Therefore, this study aims to assess the existing capacity of interior design education in Türkiye in the context of climate change via a systematic assessment to determine the awareness levels of higher education institutes, including the actors of interior design scholars and interior design students, in Türkiye. To achieve that, it employs a 3-phased assessment in the curriculums of (1) undergraduate programs, (2) graduate programs of interior design departments, and (3) theses which are conducted on the topic in Türkiye. Statistical results were interpreted under two main subjects: climate change-focused and climate change-related. While the significantly low results of focused ones addressed an educational gap in the curriculums, promising numbers of climate change-related courses and theses indicate an ongoing process that can be boosted by increasing the awareness levels of the educational actors.

Keywords

• Interior design
• Education
• Climate change
• Assessment
• Capacity

References

1. Adger, W. N., & Vincent, K. (2005). Uncertainty in adaptive capacity. Comptes Rendus. Géoscience, 337(4), 399–410. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crte.2004.11.004
2. Adıgüzel Özbek, D. (2015). Ic Mimarlik Egitimi ve Cevresel Yaklasim Butunselligi. 313–323.
3. Adıgüzel Özbek, D. (2020). Elective Courses as a Dialogic Environment: Sustainable Design in Interior Architecture Course. A+ArchDesign, 6(2), 75–91.
4. Algur Marşoğlu, H. (2019). Investigation of Ithaca eco-village according to sustainable design criteria in the framework of climate crisis. Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University.
5. Alves, F., Nicolau, L. B., Lima, D., Azeiteiro, U. M., & Nicolau, P. B. (2018). University Student’s Perceptions About Climate Change: The Case of Interior Design and Architecture Students of a Brazilian University. In W. Leal Filho, E. Manolas, A. M. Azul, U. M. Azeiteiro, & H. McGhie (Eds.), Handbook of Climate Change Communication: Vol. 2 (pp. 183–203). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70066-3_13
6. Bassett, T. J., & Fogelman, C. (2013). Déjà vu or something new? The adaptation concept in the climate change literature. Geoforum, 48, 42–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2013.04.010
7. Brooks, N. (2003). Vulnerability, risk and adaptation: A conceptual framework (Working Paper 38). Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.
8. CIDA. (2021). Future Vision 2020-21 A Strategic View to the Future. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c9ae7530490796e32442342/t/6256fc3fc3385115de363d83/1649867840369/FutureVision_Formatted.pdf

9. CIDA. (2024a). 2024 Future Scan. https://cida.org/futurescan
10. CIDA. (2024b). CIDA Professional Standards 2024. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c9ae7530490796e32442342/t/65a5980d5a420b5eb172937e/1705351181383/Professional+Standards+2024.pdf
11. CIDQ. (2019). Definition of Interior Design. https://www.cidq.org/_files/ugd/0784c1_16c47b1a47de44f7b8f3f87367e483ac.pdf
12. Cole, L. B., & Hamilton, E. M. (2024). Transition Interior Design: Reimagining Practice and Education for a Post-Carbon Society. Journal of Sustainability Research, 6(2). https://doi.org/10.20900/jsr20240018
13. Cotton, M., & Stevens, E. (2019). Mapping Discourses of Climate Change Adaptation in the United Kingdom. Weather, Climate, and Society, 11(1), 17–32. https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-18-0024.1
14. Diduck, A. (2010). The Learning Dimension of Adaptive Capacity: Untangling the Multi-level Connections. In D. Armitage & R. Plummer (Eds.), Adaptive Capacity and Environmental Governance (pp. 199–221). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-12194-4_10
15. Dryzek, J. S. (2021). The politics of the earth: Environmental discourses (Fourth edition). Oxford University Press.
16. Duhaime, A.-C. (2022). Minding the climate: How neuroscience can help us solve our environmental crisis. Harvard University press.
17. Gifford, R., Kormos, C., & McIntyre, A. (2011). Behavioral dimensions of climate change: Drivers, responses, barriers, and interventions. WIREs Climate Change, 2(6), 801–827. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.143
18. Grafakos, S., Pacteau, C., Delgado, M., Landauer, M., Lucon, O., Driscoll, P., Wilk, D., Zambrano, C., O’Donoghue, S., & Roberts, D. (2018). Integrating Mitigation and Adaptation: Opportunities and Challenges. In C. Rosenzweig, W. D. Solecki, P. Romero-Lankao, S. Mehrotra, S. Dhakal, & S. Ali Ibrahim (Eds.), Climate Change and Cities (1st ed., pp. 101–138). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316563878.011
19. Gürol-Öngören, P., Acar, S., Özbek, A., & Yılmaz. (2024). Cross-Disciplinary Pedagogies: Education on Heritage and Climate Change in Europe. In A. Khaefi, D. I. Kaya, & I. G. Curulli (Eds.), Heritage Education for Climate Action (1st ed). John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781394255443
20. Hassan, M., & Xie, H. (2020). Climate Change and Conservation of Coastal Built Heritage. Springer Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8672-5
21. Hergert, R., Barth, V., & Klenke, T. (2010). Interdisciplinary and Interfaculty Approaches in Higher Education Capable of Permeating the Complexity of Climate Change. In W. Leal Filho (Ed.), Universities and Climate Change (pp. 107–115). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-10751-1_9
22. Hurlimann, A., Beilin, R., & March, A. (2023). ‘Rethinking the way we practice our professions’: Social-ecological resilience for built environment professionals. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 47(1), 118–133. https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2022.2099735
23. Hurlimann, A., Cobbinah, P. B., Bush, J., & March, A. (2021). Is climate change in the curriculum? An analysis of Australian urban planning degrees. Environmental Education Research, 27(7), 970–991. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2020.1836132
24. Hurlimann, A., Iftikhar, N., & Liu, J. (2024). A framework for climate change curriculum redevelopment within built environment professional degrees. Environmental Education Research, 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2024.2403403
25. İç Mimarlık Programı Bulunan Tüm Üniversiteler | YÖK Lisans Atlası. (2024). https://yokatlas.yok.gov.tr/lisans-bolum.php?b=10097
26. İç Mimarlık ve Çevre Tasarımı Programı Bulunan Tüm Üniversiteler | YÖK Lisans Atlası. (2024). https://yokatlas.yok.gov.tr/lisans-bolum.php?b=10096
27. IIDA. (n.d.). What is Interior Design? IIDA. Retrieved November 28, 2024, from https://iida.org/about/what-is-interior-design
28. IPCC. (1995). IPCC Second Assessment Climate Change 1995.
29. IPCC. (2008). Climate change 2007: Contribution of ... to the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 4: Synthesis report: [a report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] / ed. by Rajendra K. Pachauri (R. K. Pachauri, Ed.). IPCC.
30. IPCC. (2012). Glossary of terms. In C. B. Field, V. Barros, T. F. Stocker, D. Qin, D. J. Dokken, K. L. Ebi, M. D. Mastrandrea, K. J. Mach, S. K. Allen, M. Tignor, & P. M. Midgley (Eds.), Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (pp. 555–564). Cambridge University Press. https://archive.ipcc.ch/pdf/special-reports/srex/SREX-Annex_Glossary.pdf
31. IPCC. (2014). The Synthesis Report of the Fifth Assessment Report. https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/SYR_AR5_FINAL_full.pdf
32. IPCC. (2019). The Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate: Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (1st ed.). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157964
33. IPCC. (2023). The Synthesis Report of the Sixth Assessment Report (Longer Report). https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_SYR_LongerReport.pdf
34. IPCC & WMO (Eds.). (1992). Climate change: The 1990 and 1992 IPCC assessments, IPCC first assessment report overview and policymaker summaries and 1992 IPPC supplement. IPCC.
35. Kaptan, B. B. (1998). İçmimarlığın Oluşum ve Örgütlenme Süreci. Anadolu Sanat, 8(11), 64–87.
36. Leichenko, R., & O’Brien, K. (2024). Climate and society: Transforming the future (2nd ed.). Polity Press.
37. Lo, A. Y. (2016). Public Discourses of Climate Change in Hong Kong. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 18(1), 27–46. https://doi.org/10.1080/1523908X.2015.1040545
38. Lutz, W., & Muttarak, R. (2017). Forecasting societies’ adaptive capacities through a demographic metabolism model. Nature Climate Change, 7(3), 177–184. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3222
39. Marshall, N. A., Park, S. E., Adger, W. N., Brown, K., & Howden, S. M. (2012). Transformational capacity and the influence of place and identity. Environmental Research Letters, 7(3), 034022. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/7/3/034022
40. Mochizuki, Y., & Bryan, A. (2015). Climate Change Education in the Context of Education for Sustainable Development: Rationale and Principles. Journal of Education for Sustainable Development, 9(1), 4–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/0973408215569109
41. Mortreux, C., & Barnett, J. (2017). Adaptive capacity: Exploring the research frontier. WIREs Climate Change, 8(4), e467. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.467
42. Otto, F. E. L., & Fabian, F. (2023). Equalising the evidence base for adaptation and loss and damages. Global Policy, 1758-5899.13269. https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.13269
43. Petticrew, M., & Roberts, H. (2006). Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide (1st ed.). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470754887
44. Rogers, R. W. (1983). Cognitive and physiological processes in fear appeals and attitude change: A revised theory of protection motivation. In J. T. Cacioppo & R. e. Petty (Eds.), Basic Social Psycophysiological Research (pp. 153–176).
45. Santos, P. T., Bacelar-Nicolau, P., Pardal, M. A., Bacelar-Nicolau, L., & Azeiteiro, U. M. (2016). Assessing Student Perceptions and Comprehension of Climate Change in Portuguese Higher Education Institutions. In W. Leal Filho, K. Adamson, R. M. Dunk, U. M. Azeiteiro, S. Illingworth, & F. Alves (Eds.), Implementing Climate Change Adaptation in Cities and Communities (pp. 221–236). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28591-7_12
46. Shepherd, N., Cohen, J. B., Carmen, W., Chundu, M., Ernsten, C., Guevara, O., Haas, F., Hussain, S. T., Riede, F., Siders, A. R., Singh, C., Sithole, P., & Troi, A. (2022). ICSM CHC White Paper III: The Role of Cultural and Natural Heritage for Climate Action. ICOMOS. https://openarchive.icomos.org/id/eprint/2719/
47. Simpson, N. P., Sabour, S., Clarke, J., Tan, E., Wilkinson, E., & Orlove, B. (2024). Heritage adaptation to climate change: Reducing risk and harnessing opportunities. ODI Working Paper.
48. Smit, B., & Pilifosova, O. (2003). From Adaptation to Adaptive Capacity and Vulnerability Reduction. In J. B. Smith, R. J. T. Klein, S. Huq, & Potsdam-Institut für Klimafolgenforschung (Eds.), Climate change, adaptive capacity and development. Imperial College Press ; US distributor, World Scientific Pub.
49. Smit, B., & Wandel, J. (2006). Adaptation, adaptive capacity and vulnerability. Global Environmental Change, 16(3), 282–292. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2006.03.008
50. TAPLAK. (2024). İçmimarlik / İçmimarlik Ve Çevre Tasarimi Lisans Programlari Akreditasyon Ölçütleri. /https://www.taplak.org/_files/ugd/acf14b_40b6964ac1d34876ba770e70dbc9b39e.pdf
51. THE 17 GOALS | Sustainable Development. (2015). https://sdgs.un.org/goals
52. Troi, A. (2011). Historic buildings and city centres – the potential impact of conservation compatible energy refurbishment on climate protection and living conditions. International Conference Energy Management in Cultural Heritage, Dubrovnic.
53. Turner, B. L., Kasperson, R. E., Matson, P. A., McCarthy, J. J., Corell, R. W., Christensen, L., Eckley, N., Kasperson, J. X., Luers, A., Martello, M. L., Polsky, C., Pulsipher, A., & Schiller, A. (2003). A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 100(14), 8074–8079. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1231335100
54. Ulusal Tez Merkezi | Tarama Ekranları. (n.d.). Retrieved September 13, 2024, from https://tez.yok.gov.tr/UlusalTezMerkezi/tarama.jsp
55. UNFCCC. (2016). The Paris Agreement. https://unfccc.int/documents/184656
56. Usta, G., Melikoglu Eke, A. S., & Ilık Saltık, Ö. (2022). Between Education & Profession: An Evaluation of Graduation Projects in the Field of Interior Architecture in Turkey. Journal of Design Studio, 4(spi2), 5–20. https://doi.org/10.46474/jds.1154794
57. Wachholz, S., Artz, N., & Chene, D. (2014). Warming to the idea: University students’ knowledge and attitudes about climate change. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 15(2), 128–141. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-03-2012-0025
58. Watson, R. T. & UNEP (Eds.). (2003). Climate change 2001: Synthesis report. United Nations. Why Interior Designers Must Fight Climate Change. (n.d.). Metropolis. Retrieved July 30, 2024, from https://metropolismag.com/viewpoints/interior-designers-climate-carbon/
59. Zobeidi, T., Yazdanpanah, M., Forouzani, M., & Khosravipour, B. (2016). Climate change discourse among Iranian farmers. Climatic Change, 138(3–4), 521–535. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-016-1741-y