CHILDREN AND ARCHITECTURE: ADAPTATION OF THE ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN EDUCATION PROGRAMME INTO TURKISH CULTURE

This study presents the examples of activities obtained with the adaptation into Turkish of the Design Education Programme developed by Taylor, Vlastos et al. in 1980s. The Design Education is an interdisciplinary programme that aims to make children from preschool to high school acquire knowledge and skills related with design, to encourage them to design their own education settings, and to create individuals who are sensitive to the cultural and natural world where they live. The Design Education Programme was translated into Turkish with language and field experts in order to assure linguistic equivalence. Then the programme was submitted to field experts who provided their opinions; and experiential, conceptual and semantic equivalence was assured through suggestions and corrections of experts. The programme adapted into Turkish consists of thirteen sessions and twenty six activities. It is planned to implement the programme with six to eleven years old children twice a week for thirteen weeks and analyze the results for making it applicable nationwide. The present study in based on three activities of the programme. The targeted gains of these activities are understanding the importance of historical and cultural buildings, making a school design and making a connection between architectural building components and body.