THE HISTORİCAL DEVELOPMENTAL PROCESS OF GAME TABLES AND PLAYER SEATS

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to analyze the historical development process of game tables, player seating elements and furniture sets designed for multiplayer board games, which have an important place among the social needs of human beings for centuries, and to examine their usage forms. In the study, using qualitative methods, a review and literature study was carried out on examples within the scope of document analysis. The selected samples were preferred by the easily available sampling method. In addition, wall paintings, images on pottery, paintings, games, game tables, player seating elements exhibited in museums; have been examined and tried to be interpreted with interior design requirements such as aesthetics and flexibility, as well as auxiliary sciences such as anthropometry and ergonomics.

Among the games, the ones that appeal to the widest target audience are the board games. Games such as deed, mehen, latrunculi, hnefatafl, which belong to local cultures in ancient times and have lost their popularity today, games such as chess, go, dominoes, mancala, which have adapted to the universal culture and become a phenomenon, computer and console games brought by the technology age, next generation metaverse games, all of them are interacted with the interior and needed furniture design. Throughout the history of the game, the furniture designed and the spaces fictioned have been in motion in line with technology and social changes. Board games: are still in demand because it carries one or more of the qualities such as being a symbol of social status, being used to develop strategic skills, establishing a bond with belief, turning into a ritual element, guiding the desire for competition, and being an object of socialization. In the new millennium, the effects of the pandemic, the rapid progress of technology and the competition between companies have increased the variety of products and materials, new interior space typologies have been formed, and terms such as gaming chair and e-sports hall have been introduced to the interior architecture literature. Ergonomics, anthropometry, aesthetics, flexibility, and specialized detail designs have become sought after in the user-product relationship. Some of the board games have become universal objects of culture and design. The strengthening of the theme of violence in computer and console games also imposes new responsibilities on the interior architect. Since playsets have a history of five thousand years and still maintain their value, it is important to compile the historical processes of these products and examine them in the context of interior design and user-product relationship.