Abstract: Environmental design captures scales from city to interior space. Sustainable discourse in environmental design mostly focuses on the political aspects of urban planning. Although the urban planners discuss and take decisions about the future development policies about cities; the most intimate relation between the design environment and the user is interior environment. Designing interior environments can be considered as a practice of creating four dimensional volumes which embody the physical dimension and the users’ experience, as the fourth dimension. Both within construction process of environment and the use many different aspects of design are considered. The main consideration of this design process is, to select materials/furniture in order to meet users’ needs. Especially, the production of interior design elements /materials captures the majority of the construction sector. Are these selections generator of new environmental problems? Moreover, with this design practice the meeting needs of user is the main focal point. In this point, the key element is the definition of needs. Are these needs vital enough to consume future recourses? The plenary lecture focuses on the parameters about sustainable approaches in the interior design.

Brief biography of the speaker:
Nur Ayalp is Associate Professor in the Department of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design in TOBB ETU University. Nur Ayalp was born in Adana, Turkey on 18 May 1976. Nur Ayalp took bachelor degree of Interior Architect and Environmental Designer from Bilkent University, Turkey in 1999. She took her master of fine arts degree from same university in 2001. She also worked as a research assistant in Bilkent University during master education. She worked as an Interior Architect in MRA Architecture and Construction Firm between 2001-2004.She is a member of Chamber of Interior Architects in Ankara, Turkey. She took her PhD degree from Hacettepe University in 2008. Her researches are focused on renovation of interiors, cultural settings and environmental psychology.