Is design a solution or a remedy?

ITU Taşkışla Faculty of Architecture
Yaşar University, Faculty of Architecture, Department of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design

The aim of Yasar University’s stand (Installation of the Faculty of Architecture, Department of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design) at the 3rd Istanbul Design Biennial is to promote a ‘critical’ analysis of the current state of design in relation with the state of ‘emergency’, when emergency means the underprivileged human condition generated as the consequence of a post-disaster living situation (refugees or earthquake victims).
The installation, a symbolic container home, a living space ‘furnished’ with real life’s fragments and student’s envisioned design proposals, will offer the ‘ground’ to pose a very crucial question:
IS DESIGN A SOLUTION OR A REMEDY?

The Installation will not provide any answer to this question; the intention is to encourage visitors to stop by and, while experiencing the narrow living space of a container home, to interrogate themselves about the meaning of design in relation with the ‘state of emergency’ of thousands of ‘uprooted’ lives.
The Installation creates a link with some of the EIGHT PROPOSITIONS of the Biennial’s theme, such as:
1. DESIGN IS ALWAYS DESIGN OF THE HUMAN
7. “GOOD DESIGN” IS AN ANESTHETIC
8. DESIGN WITHOUT ANESTHETIC ASKS URGENT QUESTIONS ABOUT OUR HUMANITY
The Installation will consist of two main ‘sections’:
1.THE BOX. A container house, made of a real shipping container (size to be defined) to be intended as ‘the shell’; and the ‘inner space’, the living environment made of juxtaposed ‘boxes’ and resembling the set-up of a ‘home’ hosting ‘uprooted’ people.
2.THE FRAMES. A series of PANELS, merging envisioned design proposals of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design students of Yasar University side by side with real images of ‘interiors’ of container homes inhabited by underprivileged individuals.