The fifth annual DRS Pedagogy SIG Learn X Design conference, Insider Knowledge, was held between July 9-12 at Middle East Technical University.
The conference hosted 150 delegates from 81 institutions in 31 countries, highlighting the continued interest in design education research around the world. In all, 87 papers and 6 workshops were presented.
Before the conference officially started, a Ph.D. PitStop Event took place. 24 PhD students presented their work and participated in the short lectures by Owain Pedgley, Peter Lloyd, Gülay Hasdoğan, and Gülşen Töre Yargın. After the presentations, the students had the chance to exchange ideas and take feedback from peers and experts.
During the conference, there were 27 presentation sessions in 18 Track Themes. Details about the sessions and abstracts of all the presented papers can be reached via the conference website.
The keynote of the first day, Gabriela Goldschmidt, delivered her presentation titled “Disciplinary Knowledge and the Design Space”. The keynote of the second day was Zeynep Çelik Alexander and presented her work titled “Drawing Circles”. Lastly, the keynote speech titled “Disciplinary Knowledge and the Design Space” was given by Halime Demirkan.
Six interesting workshops were organized within the conference. Alon Razgour (WS 1), Senem Turhan and Çağla Doğan (WS 2), Dalsu Özgen Koçyıldırım, Yekta Bakırlıoğlu and Aykut Coşkun (WS 3), Ece Yalım (WS 4), Emre Çağlar and Nagihan Tuna (WS 5) and Alper Karadoğaner and Dilruba Oğur (WS 6) were the facilitators.
The conference ended with a panel session considering the future of design education and research. The panelists Emre Çağlar, Aykut Coşkun, İpek Akpınar, Yasuko Takayama, and Stanley Reucker discussed the design pedagogy for future generations together with the audience.
The closing speech was given by the co-chairs of the conference: Naz Börekçi, Fatma Korkut and Dalsu Özgen Koçyıldırım outlining the design process and organization behind the event.
The social events of the conference were memorable as well. Live-Band Karaoke after PhD Pitstop, Rakı-meze or Hammam after the presentations and the conference dinner with traditional belly dancing workshop were how delegates relieved the exhaustion of the day.
