Evaluation of sustainable schoolyards: “Design your schoolyard” workshops with a practice-based process in Muratpaşa, Antalya

Design of the learning spaces is not only the field of the design discipline. Alternative learning processes such as outdoor environmental learning underline an emerging field that needs to be discussed with interdisciplinary lenses. This study stands in between design, environmental learning, and sustainability. Environmental learning brings the concepts of learning outside and in daily life by sharing and experiencing the knowledge. Educational spaces cannot be handled with traditional design principles anymore. Designers should start approaching the learning spaces not only with aesthetical or spatial values; and start to include curriculum design, sustainable design, and alternative learning processes into this multifaceted process. Designers and education managers should also interpret this “in-between” field with practice-based studies. Therefore, this study is critical because it creates a practice-based process for creating a sustainable design-based curriculum that empowers students to design their schoolyards. The pilot study combines curriculum design, spatial design, and learning about sustainability themes, under “Design Your Schoolyard” online workshops and it includes multi-stakeholders to the process. On the other hand, field research evaluates the schoolyards of the pilot study area, Muratpaşa, Antalya, which aims to expose the condition of schoolyards for outdoor learning. The research first; aims to open a new discussion on schoolyard design in the education and design field. This issue should be handled on a national level by blending various disciplines. Second, it aims to put forward an experience-based process between alternative learning, learning about sustainability, and schoolyard design-for future studies.