Yeni nesil öğrenme mekanları için kavramsal bir değerlendirme
A conceptual evaluation on new generation learning spaces
Yazar: DUYGU CANKURTARAN
Danışman: DR. ÖĞR. ÜYESİ İFFET HÜLYA ARI
İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi / Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü / Mimarlık Ana Bilim Dalı / Mimari Tasarım Bilim Dalı
Derece: Yüksek Lisans, 2019
Konu: Mimarlık = Architecture

Özet:
Günümüz eğitim modellerinde 'öğretmek' ten 'öğrenme' ye evrilen anlayış ve öğrenen-odaklı yaklaşımlar, eğitim yapılarının öğrenme mekanları olarak daha geniş bir kapsamda ele alınmasını gerektirmiştir. Bu kapsam doğrultusunda, bugün disiplinler arası yaklaşımlarla beslenen pek çok kurumsal ve akademik araştırmanın konusu geleceğin öğrenme mekanlarının nasıl şekillenebileceği sorusu üzerinden ilerlemektedir.
Aynı soruyu temel alarak yola çıkan tez çalışması, öncelikle öğrenmenin neliği ve mekansallığı üzerine eğilmiş, günümüz dünyasında öğrenen bireyden ve öğrenme mekanlarından beklentileri anlamaya çalışmıştır. Öğrenme mekanlarının kullanıcılarının pratiklerinden, ihtiyaç ve arzularından doğması beklenen tasarımlarının önceden belirlenmiş kalıplar üzerinden şekillenme tehlikesinin, kullanıcının mekansal okur-yazarlığına ve tasarım alanına getirebileceği sınırlamalar fark edilmiştir.
Yeni nesil öğrenme mekanları olarak nitelenen mekanlar için önerilen tasarım yaklaşımlarına eleştirel bir gözle bakılmıştır. Yapı ölçeği ve yapı tipolojilerinden ziyade mekanın ve mekansallığın yerinin sorgulanmasının değerli olduğu düşünülmüştür. Çalışmanın ilk bölümünde bu düşünceyi arka planda tutarak yapılan incelemeler sonucunda; öğrenme mekanlarının dikotomik tanımlar üzerinden nitelenmesi, kullanıcıların pratiklerini önceden varsayan mekansal eşleştirmeler, mekanın pedagojik potansiyelinin belirli kalıplar üzerinden değerlendirilmesi, sıklıkla esneklik kavramı üzerinden yinelenen ancak kullanıcıların mekansal okur-yazarlığına yönelik söylemsel kalan durumlar gibi sorunların ortaya çıkmakta olduğu görülmüştür.
Bu açıdan, konuya daha kapsamlı yaklaşan araştırmaların, mekanla kurulan ilişkinin farklı disiplinlerden gelen düşünme araçlarıyla zenginleşeceği düşüncesiyle ele aldıkları kavramlar çalışmanın gündemine girmiştir. Yapılandırmacılık-ötesi modeller olarak da nitelenebilen bu yaklaşımların günümüz mekan teorilerinde de öne çıkan afektif dönüş, ilişkisellik, ağ ve asamblaj gibi kavramlarla ilişki kurması, öğrenme mekanlarının geleceğine dair bir perspektifin özgünlüğünün bu türden bir okumadan doğabileceğini düşündürmüştür.
Mekan, mekansal unsurlar ve sosyomateryal çevrenin öğrenme deneyiminde etkin kullanımı için yeni nesil tasarımlar kadar yeni nesil düşünce araçlarını da kullanmak önemlidir. Bu düşünce 'Öğrenen özneyi öğrenme deneyimine çeken bir ortamın ortaya çıkışı temsili ve logosentrik olmaktan öteye giden daha bütüncül bir anlayışla nasıl kavranabilir?', 'Bu kavrayışta mimarlık disiplininin mekan kurucu unsurları ve mekan üretim süreçleri nerede durur?' sorularına yöneltmiştir. Bu amaçla kuramsal çerçeve, yeni materyalist düşünceler ve afektif dönüş gibi güncel söylemler üzerinden, Deleuze ve Guattari'nin asamblaj teorisine ilerlemiş, ilişkili yan kavramlar ile desteklenerek mekansal bir analiz modu geliştirilmeye çalışılmıştır.
Kuramsal kısımda ele alınan kavramları görünür kılacağı öngörülen mekansal üretimler üzerinden, alternatif bir tasarım süreci ve üretim alanı olarak afektif asamblajların ortaya çıkışı tartışılmıştır. Mimarlık hem süreci hem de sonuç ürünü ile arzu ve ihtiyaçları ve onların cismani yönlerini bir bütün içerisinde toplayan olma özelliği taşır. Bu nedenle, insan ve insan olmayanı afektif asamblajların içerisinde toplayabilen bir analiz modunun öğrenmeyi yapılandırmacı paradigmaların da ötesine taşıyabileceği düşünülmüştür. Öğrenen bireyin deneyim ortamına çekilişinde farklı bir mekansallığa duyulan ihtiyacın da mekansal ve materyal ortamla kurulan afektif ilişkiyle karşılanma olasılığı tartışılmıştır.
Sonuç olarak bu tez çalışması, üzerine eğildiği kavramların doğasına paralel şekilde, bir model önermek yerine bir düşünceler ağı geliştirmeye çalışmış, geleceğin öğrenme mekanlarının tasarımına yön verebilecek alternatif kurguları öngörmeye çalışan bir değerlendirme sunmuştur.

Abstract:
In today's educational models, the evolving understanding from 'teaching' to 'learning' and learner-centered approaches have necessitated a broader approach for educational buildings as learning spaces. In line with this scope, the subject of many institutional and academic researches, which are fed by interdisciplinary approaches, proceed with the question of how future learning spaces can be designed. Based on the same question, the thesis study primarily focused on the nature and spatiality of learning, tried to understand the expectations from the learning individual and learning spaces in today's world, and tried to look at the design approaches developed in this direction from a critical distance.
In the spatiality of learning section, firstly, the historical development of learning theories has been discussed and the ideas underlying the educational models and learning approaches adopted today have been understood. Today, it is seen that educational buildings are in the process of rapid renewal and there is an intensive research and experiment on how to design the schools of the future as new generation learning spaces. A preliminary assessment of how the changing role and importance of physical space in learning can be addressed and progressed at the intersection of learning theories and space theories has been put forward. Together with the role of space and spatiality in learning and pedagogical practices, it is seen that the studies on learning spaces try to understand the situations where the environment is considered as a third teacher, and is not passive.
As a preparation for the conceptual reading developed within the scope of the thesis, the position of the learner in the 21st century through the post-constructivist, post-materialist, human-post human debates, which are brought up in different disciplines in parallel with the cultural and technological developments of today's world are also discussed.
The design approaches of the spaces, which are described as new generation learning spaces, their development in parallel with contemporary architectural theories, the role of space and spatial concepts, as well as the problems that may arise in the design of learning spaces, are dealt with a critical review. It was thought that questioning the role of space and spatiality rather than building scale and typologies was also valuable.
As a result of examinations and critics made by keeping this idea in the background; it has been observed that problems may occur such as; characterization of learning spaces through dichotomic definitions, spatial decisions which presupposes user practices, evaluation of the pedagogical potential of the space through pre-determined patterns around the concept of flexibility but remaining discursive in terms of users' spatial literacy.
In the third part of the thesis, the concepts considered as a means of developing an alternative answer to these problems in the context of architectural design are discussed. In this respect, the concepts in the studies approaching the relation of space and learning more comprehensively with the idea that this relationship can be enriched by means of thoughts coming from different disciplines, entered the agenda of the thesis study. The fact that these approaches, which can also be described as post-constructivist models, relate to concepts such as affective turn, relationality, network and assemblage that are prominent in contemporary space theories. These recent studies revealed that the originality of a perspective on the future of learning spaces can arise from this kind of a reading. For this reason, theoretical framework advanced to Deleuze and Guattari's assemblage theory and related concepts also by means of contemporary discourses on new materialist thoughts and affective turn.
Considering the design and design process of learning spaces as emerging from networks of relationships and assemblages, a cross-reading was made based on Deleuze's assemblage theory, concept of affect and actors. Also the concepts of line of flights, rhizome, striated and smooth space are discussed according to their potential for the design of learning spaces. It is thought that such a cross reading can relocate pedagogy and learning from its interpersonal position to the range of bodies, material artifacts, influences and affections, atmospheres and inter-spatial interactions.
The relations established in the theoretical framework are described as 'affective assemblages' in the fourth part of the thesis. An alternative design process, an alternative spatiality, and the possibility of the emergence of affective assemblages are discussed through the design of the learning spaces of the Baupiloten office, which is supposed to make the concepts discussed in the theoretical part visible to the reader. How to develop an alternative process for learning spaces is questioned through the examined concepts.
As assemblage theory refers to movement and evolvement by means of individual or collectives practices, it also points to a similar way of thinking in terms of distorting, broadening, reconstructing and constructing existing perspectives in the design of learning spaces so as to establish an affective relationship that can go beyond representations. The idea of affective assemblages as design process and products are seen as a means of predicting what might be triggered by new opportunities and routines, and new spatial possibilities at the intersection of learning space and pedagogical practices.
The establishment of the assemblage is discussed both as the physical and affective relationships that the learner establishes with the spatial situations; as well as a design process analysis on a macro scale. Thinking the design of the learning spaces in line with the concepts of Deleuze's smooth and striated space, lines of flight and assemblage, the possibility of creating non-hierarchical and user-specific processes both in thought and physical space was revealed.
The examination of the tactics used in the project examples is an attempt to propose evidence for this kind of a shift which is possible through the suggested concepts. The concepts theoritized as disrupting the space, taking focus on the affective, and reconstructing the space. The transition between these concepts are considered as lines of flight and referring to an interpretation of assemblage theory's tetravalent structure. Thus, it is also thought to bring a new perspective on the debates around flexibility in the design of new generation learning spaces.
Also, in order to put forward the differences of the spatial productions in the selected case from the ones that are criticized in the first chapter, they were examined through their pedagogical potential as affective learning assemblages. These spatial productions, which emerged as exploratory learning experiments, are thought to be significant examples in terms of laying the groundwork for the next generation of pedagogical practices that can shape the schools of the future and revealing the pedagogical potentials of space. As a conclusion resulted from this part, importance of multi-actor participation processes and adaptation of design thinking by all of these actors in spatial productions becomes apparent, just as the concept of assemblage refers to the arrangements established by the its agents. This has the potential to bring together different disciplines as curators in the spatialization of learning in the future.
Reconsidering the pedagogical potential of space through the concept of affect and evaluating spatial productions as affective learning assemblages can be said as this kind of an effort. Such approaches, which are still developing, can be seen as an alternative way of shaping the schools and educational buildings of the future. However, within the scope of this thesis, instead of schools and building typologies, the thoughts related to space and spatiality is on focus. It is expected that such examples arising from the close relationship between the user and the space around the pedagogical practices and learning in general will multiply and be actively involved in the design and program of the buildings in the future.
As a result, this thesis study, parallel to the nature of the concepts on which it is concerned, tried to develop a network of ideas instead of suggesting a model, and presented an evaluation that tries to predict alternative ways that can shape the design of future learning spaces.