The life center unit's design for inclusive schools in turkey: A case of gokkusagi primary school

Human rights assured whole population of equal education opportunity across the world by means of inclusive education, which provides non-discriminated and non-stigmatizing educational environment for the disabled students and their peers. Inclusive education proposes to increase participation and integration of disabled students in educational environments through support spaces. In Turkey, SERÇEV (Children with Cerebral Palsy Association) has encouraged ‘life center unit’ as a support space at primary level inclusive education school, which is called Gokkusagi Primary School in Ankara. The aim is to support disabled students’ relationships with other students and users in the school environment. Establishment of life center unit brings out a fact that there is a spatial necessity for social integration in inclusive education schools, which is open to all population to respond their daily needs, especially for disabled students. According to this purpose, interviews were conducted with parents of students to find out the needs related with the usage of life center unit. In this paper, Gokkusagi Primary School will be taken as an example to find out user’s expectations and needs for defining a base related to design criteria of the life center unit. Site visits and, interviews at site visits help define user type, type of use, period of use and spatial requirements of life center unit in inclusive education environments. This study aims to create a base for design criteria of the life center unit in order to utilize for further implementations through universal design principles.