# Doctoral Research **Designing for Social Interaction in Public Space** PhD Research · Özyeğin University · 2018–2025 ![[hero-image.jpg]] A design research study exploring how potential users perceive designed interventions for social interaction in public space, and the design and experiential factors that shape these perceptions. Urban public spaces bring strangers into physical proximity, but proximity alone does not produce social interaction. My doctoral research investigated how designed artefacts — particularly public seating — participate in this space between co-presence and interaction. The research revisits William H. Whyte's concept of **triangulation**: the process through which an external stimulus creates a shared point of attention between strangers. Rather than treating triangulation as a predictable effect that can simply be built into an object, I explored how it might be interpreted at product scale as a set of **designable conditions** through which interaction can be invited, negotiated, or declined. The study combined the analysis of existing design exemplars with participant-led workshops, field observation and situated design experimentation. These were progressively synthesized into a conceptual framework and a tangible generative tool intended to support designers in reasoning about the social dynamics their interventions may produce. ## Approach Through visual elicitation and analysis of existing design examples, I identified design and experiential factors that influence these perceptions and developed them into a conceptual framework through the lens of triangulation. ![[4.jpg]] The empirical research unfolded across four connected studies: **Design workshop and situated provotype — Zaragoza** An eleven-day collaborative workshop in which participants designed and constructed _Fuenturniture_, an interactive seating intervention. The resulting artefact was subsequently observed in its public setting. **Visual elicitation and collective card sorting — Istanbul** A workshop examining how participants perceived different social affordances, focusing particularly on whether interventions were experienced as disabling, guiding or empowering. ![[4_comparison(copy).jpg]]**Design Ethnography course implementation — Özyeğin University** The emerging framework was introduced into a semester-long design course, where four student groups developed and tested situated interventions. Observing how the initial framework was used led directly to its transformation from a static list into a tangible card set. **Task-based card evaluation — University of Southern Denmark** The iterated card set was tested with master's-level design students to examine its clarity and generative potential.