The Senses in Basic Design Education

Abstract

Throughout its history, mankind has designed material and spiritual needs. Some of these designs disappeared, some of them have survived to the present day. The changing economic order in the development and the change of the world, especially by the nineteenth century, has made it a part of the design and designer’s professional life. The twentieth century with its ground-breaking scientific studies, evolving computer technology and digital technologies, which name the century we live in, quickly changed and increased what was expected from the design and the designer. Today, while AI studies are still in progress, it is clear that designers have a significant share in the work to meet the needs we recur. This situation shows us that the approach of a designer’s way of conceiving the world of the day to the design problem, field dominance, intellectual accumulation, education, and quality is crucial. Accordingly, one of the important conditions that allow such criteria to occur in a designer is that the designer’s ability to reason with the five senses one has perceived outside of one’s own and to reach a conclusion. The five senses are the means by which one can reach the world outside. The most important talent of a designer is to analyse the data the designer has collected with the five senses according to the designer’s own understanding and plasticizing the idea. In this paper, the conceptual projects carried out by TOBB Interior Architecture students in the scope of “Basic Design Studio” course of 2017-18 Spring semester were developed with a focus on five senses.