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The increasing number of older passengers is resulted in a growing significance of international senior tourism industry. In today's competitive airport environments, improving the airport service performance (ASP) for older passengers is crucial to take an important place in the market. ASP design has been in the focal point of many researchers and airport stakeholders. However, the service performance evaluation regarding airport architectural design and use of older passengers have been mostly underrated.

The study focused on ASP evaluation of architectural building elements. The proposed simulation-based service walkthrough (SBSW) was applied in a case airport building in Istanbul. Experts performed landside passenger activities to evaluate its ASP with a given walkthrough instruction. An empathic tool, GERonTologic age simulation (GERT) suit, was used to experience the physical limitations of older passengers during the experiment.

Results showed that SBSW positively influenced experts' evaluation of ASP, where higher service problems were obtained. The GERT suit created a significant difference, where lower ASP scores and higher perceived empathy were observed within the group with the GERT suit. The study concluded that the proposed ASP criteria and SBSW could provide a useful research framework during service design of age-friendly airports.

The study addressed a novel area of enquiry by proposing a new set of ASP criteria for older passengers considering the airport architectural design and evaluating these criteria through a new empathic approach “SBSW”.

The aging population and their expectations have become a growing concern in Turkey as in other countries. This study aims to investigate interactions/relationships between the needs, demands and expectations of Turkish elderly and inclusive urban design principles. It tries to answer the research question: how the inclusive urban life could improve elderly life and contribute to achieve an active aging process. An exploratory study was conducted with a total of 100 randomly selected elderly between the ages 65-95 (45 female and 55 male) from the City Centre of Ankara. A survey instrument based on the ‘streets for life’ concept (Burton & Mitchell 2006) was developed to gather data. The participants were asked to identify how important inclusive urban design features were in understanding, using and navigating within an urban environment. The findings of the study suggest that an inclusive open environment allows elderly people to feel safer, and thus encourage more regular use of urban space. Overall the results highlight two important insights, first that accessibility is inevitable for increasing the chance of the aging population to participate in the mainstream of community life and second, plain and simple signage is necessary to achieve more liveable urban environments. The study concludes the most important physical requirements and social requirements for elderly people.

This study aimed to broaden Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) by including healthy urban performance attributes of the residential neighbourhoods as an additional predictor for walking behaviour. First, the study reviewed the literature on TPB and walkability in residential environments, and then constructed a TPB model based on walkability to set the hypotheses. The study explored the correlations among walkability attributes and walkability behaviour through a survey conducted with residents in Ankara, Turkey (n= 220). To analyse the data, first confirmatory factor analysis and later, structural equation modelling were used. The findings of the study highlighted two aspects of planning for a walkable neighbourhood: (i) a walkability model based on the three constructs of TPB should not neglect the measured and experienced urban performance; (ii) utilizing pedestrian environment for walking as fully as possible requires a collaborative and an experiential approach as well as a multi-parameter decision-making process.

The purpose of this study was to introduce a sustainability course to interior design students and explore how working with industry could address challenges with integrating sustainability education into and ensuring student motivation in non-studio courses.

This is a case study presenting qualitative evaluation from the 15-week “IAED 342 Sustainable Design for Interiors” course with a sample of 98 third-year interior architecture students at Bilkent University, Turkey.

The findings were analyzed from the perspectives of two processes learning and working with industry. The results revealed that an active learning environment and industry collaboration positively influenced students' awareness of sustainable design, increased their ability to integrate sustainability knowledge to design studio projects and improved academic outcomes.

This study is a unique effort by the Department of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design at Bilkent University by being the first to introduce a sustainability course and create a responsive and social learning environment through industry collaboration. The results of the study highlighted that better outcomes are achieved by working directly with industry than by performing theoretical exercises.

Architecture, at its very essence, is the process of providing physical space and place for human activity. Primarily concerned with responding to the specific needs of users and their societies, the built environment plays a tremendous role in shaping and facilitating the every day world we live in. Although being inextricably concerned with this man-environment dynamic, architecture however seems to limit its mainstream practices, education and standards to the conventional spectrum of “normal”. This leaves numerous user groups and victims of social circumstances largely excluded from the luxury of an architecture that deems itself specifically to serve them.