Assessment of Sectoral Furniture Competitions as Learning Outcomes in Furniture Design Courses

Abstract

In Turkey, furniture design courses are given in the departments of Industrial Design and Interior Design at Fine arts and Design Faculties and Schools and also in the department of Furniture and Decoration at Vocational Schools. Learning outcomes that defined through the Bologna Process for furniture design courses are generally involves; construction of user-furniture relations, usage of ergonomy and material knowledge, construction of product-material and product-ergonomy relations, solutions of details in designed furniture, exposion of creative and unique ideas in furniture design. Participation and achievements in national and sectoral competitions are major assessment criterias for both education instutions and sectors in the point of furniture design in order to determine how these learning outcomes and sectoral expectations overlap. MOSDER (The Association of Turkish Furniture Manufacturers) National Household Furniture Design Contest takes the first place among the other sectorial competitions in furniture design area in terms of carried out annually and wide-ranging. The main purpose of this study is to critisize the contrubition for the educatinal instutions and sectoral firms in the perspective of conjunction of the targets among the assetment criteria of MOSDER competition and the goals that are defined as learning outcomes for furniture design courses.