Contemporarily, we have been passing through a period in which changes are effective in all fields. These changes also affect the theory and practice of interior architectural professional education in every perspective. Especially in terms of actors that form the basis of vocational education, there are more visible changes in curriculums, design approaches, and presentation techniques with the effects of changing social dynamics. Therefore, at this point, it is important to discuss the versatility of interior architectural education in academic platforms as it has been in all the design-focused disciplines. 

ICMEK (National Congress on Interior Architecture Education) has contributed to the discipline as a national platform where scientists who think and search on interior architecture education come together and exchange ideas. The journey which started at Istanbul Technical University in 2007, continued at Istanbul Kültür University’s Interior Architecture and Environmental Design department in the years of 2012, 2015, and 2017. The congress, which played an important role in the development of interior architecture education with current themes in different years, will be held in 2022 as an international scientific event. ICMEK5th, which will be organized by Istanbul Kültür University’s Department of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design in collaboration with Karadeniz Technical University’s Department of Interior Architecture, will try to shed light on new dynamics and future projections in interior architecture education at an international level. 

The extraordinary change experienced with the pandemic -especially in the last two years- has affected the discipline of interior architecture with different aspects and reminded us that it is necessary to open the door to new searches at every level of education. Familiar processes, people, or places have lost their meaning. Even though the renewing and changing dynamics of design education according to the conditions of the era during its history, individuals who work in the education field needed to plan various actions with this unexpected change. This situation revealed various difficulties in their personal fields and push the limits of possibilities. 

In this sense, the theme of ICMEK5th, which aims at discussing interior architecture education and offering various suggestions about its future, has been determined “Rethinking”. With “ICMEK5th International Congress on Interior Architecture Education”, we invite the researchers who involve in interior architecture education or professional practice to question the past and the present, to think about the future and to produce within the framework of theory-practice-history, instructor-learner, undergraduate-graduate, formal-informal, curriculum-process, face to face-online, physical infrastructure-technological infrastructure, interdisciplinary interaction-continuing professional education, digitalization, ethics and in many more perspectives. 

Prof.Dr. Gülay USTA
İstanbul Kültür University-Turkey
Congress CO-Chair  

Prof.Dr. Tülay Zorlu 
Karadeniz Technical University-Turkey 
Congress CO-Chair