An Assesment of the Significance of Adaptive Reuse Focused Design Studio in Interior Design Education

Adaptive reuse, which indicates the functional and physical changes of a building mainly with a historical value, has become an important part of interior architectural practices. Conserving the heritage buildings and their cultural value for future generations present a real challenge for professional education programs, which are responsible for training young experts who can focus on the aspects of architectural heritage conservation. However, there is minimal research attention, which is directed towards adaptive reuse as an integral part of learning in interior architectural education. The main issue of this paper is to lessen this gap. Meanwhile, research on learning architectural heritage conservation can offer an opportunity to involve student views as a main data source and hence better understand the conceptions and misconceptions that the students hold about adaptive reuse in the interior design studio. With this understanding, this study, analyzes and evaluates the role of integrating adaptive reuse concept to learning in the interior architectural design studio and ascertain the value of such an approach as a contribution to heritage conservation awareness rising. Keywords: Architectural heritage conservation, Adaptive reuse, Learning adaptive reuse, Interior architecture, Design studio