The Role of Education in Achieving Local Identity- Based Interior Design by Utilizing Cultural Schema

Abstract

Design education is the most important and crucial stage in a designer's preparation. The design studio is also the starting point in the process of teaching design students how to deal with the issue of identity. The paper discusses the major academic objectives and methodologies that were employed to explore the potential of cultural and architectural heritage as a valid platform for design education. The paper explores cultural schema through cognitive aspects by applying an empirical study and identifying the opportunities and constraints. The wider goal is to expand the boundaries of interior design, highlighting the role of interior design education in preserving our diversified traditional culture and the continuity of the local identity through achieving an innovational design. Under the monitoring to the final year interior design students, the empirical study was part of the design studio course. The effects of integrate elements extracted or derived from local identity into modern designs in their graduation project process through cultural schema theory are examined. As a result, a conceptual framework for discussing educating towards local identity is created, model that highlights the gaining of clear knowledge of design. The framework describes how students interpret the cultural meaning through interior design by adapting cultural schema theory. This was achieved by the following methodology; literature review in three main topics (cognitive, cultural schema that is forced to change or accommodate new information and design education) was applied. Moreover, this paper follows an empirical study methodology with an in-depth analysis of the data.