ECOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF BUILDING ELEMENTS OF TRADITIONAL BUILDINGS IN THE RURAL AREA OF THRACE REGION (TURKEY)

Today serious environmental problems are being experienced all around the world. The increase in these problems emerges to a large extent from the buildings, because building make negative impacts on environmental values during their life cycle due to various reasons. For this reason, one of the targets of the modern architecture needs to be the design of environment-friendly ecological buildings which do not harm the environment. The traditional buildings in Turkey have little environmental effects. The fact that the environmental factors have been taken into account in designing these buildings have enabled them to be much more nature-friendly. For this reason, they are considered to be ecological buildings. The aim of this study is to investigate the characters of the building elements of the traditional buildings from an ecological point of view. The rural buildings reflecting the authentic characters in Thrace have been chosen as the subject of this study. These buildings are the products of the experience the local people gained through natural living conditions of thousands of years. For this reason, it is thought that these buildings will be a model for the solution of environmental problems of today as well. A field work has been carried out in the selected region, and building elements of the buildings here such as wall, roof and flooring have been examined and then analysed ecologically. As a result of the study, it has been found that these elements have ecological features in several ways. In particular, the fact that they have been built with natural, renewable and completely local materials and that their heat performances are in a good condition have been found to be positive from an ecological poit of view.