SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY AND CO-HOUSING: A READING OVER SEDAD HAKKI ELDEM’S STUDIES ON TRADITIONAL TURKISH HOUSE TYPOLOGIES

2021-8-10
Çerşil, Ayşen
Reconsideration of sustainability as a holistic approach to meet today’s societal and ecological challenges requires the integration of environmental, economic, social, and cultural dimensions to sustainability’s subject matter. Among other dimensions, implementing social sustainability to architectural productions results in the creation of built environments which are respectful to both natural and social conditions. As a primary component of the built environment, housing is a setting for environmentally protective and socially viable attitudes to be realized. In this context, variety of housing models has been experimented to provide socially sustainable environments to its users. Among many alternatives, co-housing appears as a promising model in fulfilling both the social needs of individuals and enhancing environmentally protective behaviors. It encourages positive social relations and social cohesion through participatory lifestyles and enhances social connectedness, well-being, efficient sharing of resources, practical or moral support between community members and adoption of environmentally sensitive behaviors. Therefore, co-housing is considered as a contemporary method for developing socially and ecologically sustainable housing environments. It is argued in this thesis that socially sustainable way of life of co-housing communities and architectural values of co-housing designs are not new discourses for traditional Turkish housing culture. Some social objectives of co-housing communities have been adopted and appreciated by traditional Turkish households for a long time. In terms of enhancing collective ways of behavior, increasing social interaction, encouraging socially connected communities, providing means for effective sharing and use of spaces and resources, spatial organizations of traditional Turkish houses display similar compositional and configurational principles with contemporary co-housing designs. Disclosing socially sustainable qualities of traditional Turkish dwellings with reference to co-housing necessitates the use of typology as a means for a correlative evaluation. Excluding the nationalistic references which the term “Turkish House” denotes Sedad Hakkı Eldem’s extensive typological studies on the “Turkish House” will be used for a solid ground for the re-evaluation of existing house types. Therefore, traditional houses will be examined through their compositional elements and configurational principles to uncover their similarities between co-housing models with relation to the concept of social sustainability.

Suggestions

Sustainability of urban regeneration in Turkey: Assessing the performance of the North Ankara Urban Regeneration Project
Korkmaz, Cansu; Balaban, Osman (Elsevier BV, 2020-01-01)
The increasing environmental footprints of cities necessitated the integration sustainability principles into urban planning and development frameworks. The growing attention on urban sustainability also influenced the policy and the practice of urban regeneration. The quest for new methods for regenerating existing urban quarters in sustainable manners resulted in the concept of sustainable urban regeneration. The concept aims to develop urban regeneration projects in line with the three key pillars of sus...
Social ecology challenges environmental participation: HES opposition cases in Turkey
Eryılmaz, Çağrı; Rittersberger Tılıç, Helga İda; Department of Sociology (2012)
The main research question of this thesis is “How can HES (small scale hydroelectricity plant) opposition be analyzed in terms of social ecology?” A second research question is raised to answer first one as “How can any environmental action be analyzed in terms of social ecology?” About ecological crisis, Murray Bookchin’s social ecology develops strong criticism against liberal environmentalism, deep ecology and Marxism and provides an alternative radical social change as Libertarian Municipalism (LM). Soc...
A Critical analysis of social dimension in sustainable development: a case study of Tepekışla dam and hepp in Tokat, Niksar
Köse, Pınar; Kalaycıoğlu, Hediye Sibel; Department of Social Policy (2012)
This study aims to make a critical analysis of the social dimension of sustainable development as implemented within the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process. Social dimension can be assessed on the basis of six social indicators, which are social accountability, local self-reliance, basic human needs, degree of participation, equity, and appropriate technology. In this context, a field study is conducted in four villages which will be affected by the Tepekışla Dam and Hydroelectric Power Plant (Pr...
Sustainability of historic rural settlements based on participatory conservation approach: Kemer Village in Turkey
Ekici, Simay Cansu; Özçakır, Özgün; Bilgin Altınöz, Ayşe Güliz (2022-04-01)
Purpose This paper aims to address the issue of the conservation and management of rural cultural heritage, with the aim being to gain an understanding of current problems and needs through a participatory approach, in recognition of the uniqueness of the relationship between nature, humankind and the built environment as an area of study. To this end, a comprehensive case study - Kemer Village in Turkey - focusing on the social sustainability and participatory approaches for the sustainable development of ...
Environmental governance for sustainable tourism development: Collaborative networks and organisation building in the Antalya tourism region
Erkus-Ozturk, Hilal; Eraydın, Ayda (2010-02-01)
For more than two decades the attainment of sustainable environmental quality and the protection of environmental assets have been at the forefront of central policy issues in global tourism development. Recently, it has been argued that collaborative and associative forms of governance among tourism companies and other related agents are growing in importance in the drive for sustainable and environmentally sensitive tourism. Despite the increasing number of debates on the role of networking on tourism the...
Citation Formats
A. Çerşil, “SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY AND CO-HOUSING: A READING OVER SEDAD HAKKI ELDEM’S STUDIES ON TRADITIONAL TURKISH HOUSE TYPOLOGIES,” M.Arch. - Master of Architecture, Middle East Technical University, 2021.