Awareness of the concept of universal design in design education

Abstract

Design professions, principally architecture, interior architecture, landscape design, industrial design and graphic design have to attach importance to create environments and products that derives an accessible design by all user groups. Though Universal Design (UD) is a critical approach to design practices, it is not taking a part as a separate and must course in the curriculum of design and architecture schools. Most likely, it is taking a part as an elective course in the curriculum. Therefore graduation from design schools is formulated as having no any inclusion of UD. This study is designed to highlight the importance of UD in the education process of the design professions and to raise awareness on that concept. The awareness of UD as a term and its context in the light of its principles were investigated by interviewing students from the department of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design from Atilim University, Ankara, Turkey. The results of the study indicated that, there is not enough incorporation of UD in design education as the majority of the participants did not know the concept and its content. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer review under responsibility of Prof. Ayse Cakir Ilhan