Çocuk mekanlarında biyofilik tasarım yaklaşımının faydaları
Benefits of biophilic design approach in children places
Yazar: NİHAN ÜNAL
Danışman: DR. ÖĞR. ÜYESİ ESİN SARIMAN ÖZEN
Mimar Sinan Güzel Sanatlar Üniversitesi / Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü / İç Mimarlık Ana Bilim Dalı
Derece: Doktora, 2021
Konu: İç Mimari ve Dekorasyon = Interior Design and Decoration

Özet:
Psikanalist Eric Fromm tarafından kazandırılan bir kavram olan Biyofili, kelime anlamı olarak doğa sevgisi anlamına gelmektedir. Sonrasında ise 1984 yılında Amerikan Biyolog Edward O. Wilson tarafından hipotez olarak ele alınmış ve diğer yaşam biçimlerine bağlanma dürtüsü olarak açıklanmıştır. Biyofili hipotezini bir tasarım yaklaşımı olarak tasarım dünyasına kazandırılması ise insanların ihtiyaç duyduğu doğa iletişimini onlara yapılı çevrede de sunmayı amaçlamaktadır.
Tez çalışmasında biyofilik tasarım yaklaşımı çocuk mekanları üzerinden irdelenmiştir. Bu durumun sebeplerinden biri, modern yaşamın götürülerinden biri olan yapay alanlara mahkum olmanın çocuklar üzerindeki olumsuz etkilerine çözüm sunabilmektir. Bir diğer nedeni ise doğadan her geçen gün daha çok kopan çocukların, doğadan edinebilecekleri faydalardan mahrum kalmamaları adına onlara yapılı çevrede geçirdikleri zamanda bu fırsatı sunmanın önemine vurgu yapmaktır.
Çalışmanın yürütülmesinde öğretmenlerle gerçekleştirilen yarı standartlaştırılmış görüşme, öğrencilerle gerçekleştirilen bilişsel haritalama yöntemi, doküman inceleme ve içerik analizi yöntemlerinden faydalanılmıştır. Öğretmenlerle yapılan görüşmelerin amacı, yetişkinlerin de konu üzerine bakış açılarının irdelenmesidir. Görüşmelerin veliler yerine öğretmenlerle yapılmasının sebebi ise öğretmenlerin öğrenciler konusunda daha objektif olacakları kanısıdır. 
Doküman analizi sürecinde, biyofilik tasarımın çocuklara faydaları olup olmadığı araştırılmış ve incelenen araştırmalar sonucunda biyofilik tasarımın çocuklar üzerinde önemli olumlu etkileri olduğu kanısına varılmıştır. Bu nedenle odak grubu olarak belirlenen öğrencilerin doğa algısının ölçülmesine karar verilmiştir. Öğrenci görüşmeleri ile ilgili gerekli izinler ilçe milli eğitim müdürlüğünden alınmış ve bilişsel haritalama yöntemi süreci başlatılmıştır.
Bilişsel haritalama yöntemi sürecinde, 3-5 yaş aralığındaki 140 adet öğrencilerden 'Doğa nasıl bir yerdir?' sorusunu cevaplayacak nitelikte birer resim yapmaları istenmiştir. Resimler içerik analizi yöntemi ile incelenmiş ve ortak kavramlardan bir cevap anahtarı oluşturulmuştur. Bu cevap anahtarı ve öğrencilerin yaptıkları resimler, birbirinden bağımsız alanında uzman üç kişiye (psikiyatr, çocuk psikiyatristi, psikolog) verilmiş ve belirlenen puanlama sistemi ile resimleri değerlendirmeleri istenmiştir. 11 adet resim, değerlendirme kriterlerine göre hakemler tarafından tanımlanamaz olarak belirlendiği için çalışma dışı bırakılmıştır.
Yapılan analizler sonucu 129 çocuktan yalnızca 36'sının (%27,9) doğa algısının yüksek olduğu sonucu çıkmıştır. Amaç geriye kalan çoğunluğun da doğa algısını güçlendirmek adına, hayatlarının çoğunu geçirdikleri yapılı çevrelerde biyofilik tasarım yaklaşımı uygulamaları kullanmaktır. Bu sayede çocuklar yapılı çevrede olsalar dahi doğanın onlara sağlayabileceği deneyimlerden faydalanabileceklerdir.

Abstract:
Biophilia, a concept introduced by the psychoanalyst Eric Fromm, literally means love of nature. Afterwards, it was considered as a hypothesis by the American biologist Edward O. Wilson in 1984 and explained as the impulse to connect to other life forms. Bringing the biophilia hypothesis to the design world as a design approach aims to provide the nature communication that people need in the built environment. 
Today, as a result of the awareness of people, economic inadequacies and rapid consumption of resources, design approaches that offer sustainable solutions have started to be preferred. Although sustainable solutions provide a solution to these problems in the physical context, they have not been able to solve the psychological side of this situation. This psychological side is unfortunately not only limited to adults, but also reflected on the children. This research,, aims to examine the benefits of enabling children who spend most of their time in built environments to experience nature through Biophilic Design.
In the thesis study, the biophilic design approach was examined through children's spaces as it is said. One of the reasons for this situation is, to offer solutions to the negative effects of being confined to artificial areas, which is one of the constraints of modern life, on children. Another reason is to emphasize the importance of offering this opportunity to children, who are more and more disconnected from nature every day, in order not to be deprived of the benefits they can gain from nature. 
In the conduct of the study, semi-standardized interview with teachers, cognitive mapping method with students, document review and content analysis methods were used. The purpose of the semi-standardized interviews with the teachers is to examine the perspectives of adults on the subject. The interviews were semi- standardized because this type of interview allows the interviewer to explain the questions where necessary. Considering the biophilic design as an unknown territory for teachers, it was necessary to explain the terminology to them. The reason why interviews are conducted with teachers rather than parents is that teachers will be more objective about students.
In the document analysis process, it was investigated whether biophilic design benefits children or not, and as a result of the studies examined, it was concluded that biophilic design has significant positive effects on children. For this reason, it was decided to measure the nature perception of the students determined as the focus group. Necessary permissions for student interviews were obtained from the district directorate of national education and the cognitive mapping method process was started.
During the cognitive mapping method, 140 students aged 3-5 were asked to draw a picture that would answer the question "What is nature like?" students were free to use the material they choose for painting and there were no time limitations. Pictures were analyzed by content analysis method and an answer key was created from common concepts that pictures include. This answer key and the pictures made by the students were given to three independent experts (psychiatrist, child psychiatrist, psychologist) and they were asked to evaluate the pictures with the determined scoring system. 11 pictures were excluded from the study because they were determined as indefinable by the referees according to the evaluation criteria.
The data obtained from the study was analyzed by using SPSS, Version 22.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, Illinois, USA) and the results are presented as median, mean values ± standard deviations (SD), number and percentage. The compliance of the total score to normal distribution according to age and gender independent variables was examined by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Non-parametric tests were used in the analysis, p<0.05 was considered statistically significant. 
As a result of the analysis, it was concluded that only 36 (27.9%) of 129 children had a high perception of nature. According to the age groups, the scores of the older age group were found to be significantly higher than the younger age group (p=0.0001). When the relationship between total score and gender was examined, no statistically significant difference was found (p=0.074). 
In the study, even the necessary permissions were obtained to carry out planned studies with preschool students, due to the prejudices of teachers and administrators, the work that was wanted to be carried out with children was made difficult in some cases. And study originality; in the context of Biophilic Design, is owed to the age range of the chosen focus group and with the help of this study, the emphasis on what biophilic design can add to the lives of children.
It is known that the absence of nature connection in a human being's life has severe affects. These can sort as fearing the mother nature, lack of vitamin D, hyperactivity, attention disorder, obesity and becoming disconnected to the nature. Unfortunately, these consequences are not the only ones. These problems also lead to other problems which creates a chain reaction that at the end affects a person's life entirely in a negative way. 
Day by day we get more and more away from the nature because of the modern life requirements. Workloads and workhours become more and in return of this the time a person can separate to him/herself become less. Because of this situation humans spend the most of their lives indoors. Unfortunately, this causes children to be closed to indoors too. This is why children are not able to benefit from what nature. This study, aims to bring a solution to this chain reaction. By using Biophilic Design in built environment especially for children spaces, a lot of children can be able to taste what it would be like to be in nature.
The starting point of the study was to minimize the negative effects of staying away from nature on adults and especially children with the help of Biophilic Design. Due to the epidemic that has affected the whole world, this issue has become much more important today. People began to see the depth of their need for nature more clearly because of the days and even weeks they spent in quarantine due to the current situation. This period has shown how much we need this design approach beyond the importance of Biophilic Design.
In this period, people have had to focus on different solutions in a spatial context due to the Covid-19 outbreak. The reason for this is the social distance rules that people must provide in order to protect themselves and their relatives. Due to the new regulations brought to open and closed areas in accordance with social distance rules and the fear of epidemics, people have started to prefer natural environments over built environments. They did not end with this, but had to spend most of their time in isolation due to quarantine. As a result, people are now in search of ways to bring nature to their homes. For this reason, Biophilic Design provides a useful solution for these difficult times. For further researches the affects of the pandemic on people's psychology can be discussed to see if Biophilic Design can serve well for this particular situation.
During the fieldwork, the aim of the research was to understand nature perception of the chosen focus group. It was to be able to claim that children need Biophilic Design approach in their lives to understand and benefit from nature even in an artificial environment. According to the results of this study, as it was written before, the target group shows that most of the children participants have a weak nature perception. This is why another aim of this work is to make the most of the children have a better connection with nature so a positive chain reaction can be created. The use biophilic design approach applications in the built environments where children spend most of their lives in order to strengthen the perception of nature for them. In this way, children will be able to benefit from the experiences that nature can provide them, even if they are in the built environment.