ECOLOGICAL APPROACHES IN RURAL SETTLEMENT: A CASE OF TURKEY

Creating physical environments by an ecological approach should aim to meet the needs and demands of people and to enable their cultural and natural sustainability. The present environmental problems result from many factors. One of the most striking factors is architectural activities. Buildings lead the environmental problems to emerge within the process from making construction materials to the end of building stage and building life. It springs from extravagant consumption of natural resources and energy. More the ecological approaches intensify in architecture, less the harmful effects on environment are. It is not needed to look for learning and understanding the ecological approaches in unknown or distant areas. Rural architecture has been shaped around the human needs and demands and it involves the ecological approaches. It is sufficient to comprehend the inherent principles of the rural architecture in order to identify the ecological approaches in architecture. The present study addresses the ecological approaches in the rural settlement in Anatolia and basically in rural houses. The characteristics of rural houses in terms of their formal structure, location, construction materials, indoor organization, and facade organization are assessed in an ecological perspective. The practices based on the aforementioned design parameters would show ways of producing architectural structures which does not harm the environment, relies on clean (environmentally friendly) energy sources, and requires minimum energy. In this regard, the rural houses suited to mode of life and climate may be considered to be a significant resource-guide in generating and saving the ecological environment. Within the framework of ecological approach, examples of traditional houses from various regions in Anatolia are evaluated as visual materials in this study. The criteria to be taken into account in the ecological approaches in rural houses and the parameters affecting the design are explained and the significance of handling the design process in a holistic approach is underlined.