Browsing by Author "Ercan, İrem"

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Biodegradation in Design Process: Digital building catalog for bio-inspired design proposals
(Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe) Conference 43rd, 2025) Ercan, İrem; Özbengi Uslu, Filiz; Kayabaş, Mehmet Ali
Through the incorporation of fungal biodegradation processes into architectural design, a novel approach to sustainability is possible, which goes beyond the selection of materials and growth processes and enables insights from natural decomposition. While biodegradable materials are increasingly studied, the potential of biodegradation itself to shape design remains largely unexplored. Although the biodegradation process is seen as the final stage of design, the existing knowledge of structural deformation in nature could be an inspiration for the design process in the early stages. This study analyzes the structural transformations of five fungal species during biodegradation in mesh-like frameworks as a basis for future research. This research involves a literature review, experimental analysis, and digital catalog development, resulting in MyCo-Design, a platform that documents species-specific biodegradation data. Structural changes such as shrinkage, curvature, stiffness reduction, and volume decrease were captured through photography and 3D scanning techniques, providing a resource for bio-inspired designs. MyCo-Design platform provides designers with information by species, structural forms, and degradation parameters to use as inspiration in the early stages of their design process. This platform features an AI-powered interface component that enables users to generate visuals based on design prompts inspired by experimental observation data. During the testing process, the platform showed potential in inspiring structural solutions based on biodegradation observation. The findings of the study highlight the potential to generate circular inspiration in the early stages of design through a tool created at the intersection of nature, humans, and artificial intelligence
Designing for Social Innovation: Apps as a Tool for CoCreation
(Pensoft Publishers - 10th World Summit: Civil Engineering-Architecture-Urban Planning Congress (CAUSummit 2025), 2025-10-17) Ercan, İrem; Kan, Didem; Mengi, Onur
A shared understanding of active participation of many urban actors is necessary for a socially sustainable urban environment. This study explores how various urban stakeholders including government agencies, city collectives, citizens, academic institutions, and businesses co-create by leveraging their unique skills and exchanging work and knowledge via an online platform in order to foster social innovation at urban scale. The present research hypothesizes that establishing a participatory mobile application enabling city inhabitants to actively engage and assume shared responsibilities in urban processes can strengthen the sense of belonging of citizens. The design research methodology employed in this study is rooted in the context of co-creation and participatory design. The study is structured around the hypothetical development of the Give a Hand mobile application, a participatory platform designed to make education, health, culture, and art services more accessible for everyone. By enabling participation and co-creation among city inhabitants, the platform aims to optimize public service delivery, saving both time and resources as well as to achieve more inclusive urban environments. More importantly, this platform facilitates urban value creation through mechanisms of volunteering and donations, contributing to the enhancement of the public services. This conceptual framework also helps us understand how designers serve as social innovation facilitators by developing community-driven, inclusive platforms for public service delivery and engagement. The practical implications of this study provides a sustainable network, fostering a stronger sense of belonging among the citizens. By incorporating social networking features, the app facilitates communication, collaboration, and the creation of new community networks, thereby enhancing active participation and contributing to the overall social fabric of the city. The results show that digital platforms can serve as scalable instruments for participatory governance when they are created using the concepts of social innovation and co-creation. The conceptual mobile app provides a flexible and transparent framework for cooperation between corporations, colleges, citizens, and public agencies
Exploring Bio-Actors of the Cities through Serious Games
(SIGraDi 2024 Proceedings of the XXVIII Conference of the Iberoamerican Society of Digital Graphics, 2024) Ercan, İrem; Oguz, Kaya
This study focuses on the importance of biodiversity in protecting the urban ecosystem in urban planning. Considering cities as an ecosystem, city actors should communicate collaboratively within this ecosystem. Urban actors include not only humans but also other bio-based creatures. For the communication in the city through design, collecting information about bio-actors with their habitats, serious games can play an important role. Since serious games are useful for educating players, city inhabitants can be informed through these games. It was chosen as a method that provides a space to players for learning by entertaining. Therefore, the game 'My City Mate: Exploring Bio-actors of the City', developed on the Twine platform, offers players the opportunity to get to know the bio-actors of a fictional city environment with the visual, audio and text-based information it provides. Lastly, this research analyzes players' learning and interaction levels with this game through surveys.