The relationship between life cycle embodied energy and flexible design characteristics of traditional Ottoman houses in Ankara

2021-11-9
Kılıç, Ebru
The lack of adaptability in most buildings to changes in user needs results in a shorter service life of the existing building stock; which is claimed to be around 50 years only. Such redundant buildings are usually demolished and replaced with new ones that meet user needs at the cost of not only increasing the need for energy to rebuild but also a loss of energy embodied in the demolished building. On the other hand, some of the centuries old traditional houses are still occupied because of their ability to adapt to the changes, by virtue of their flexible design characteristics and construction techniques. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the life cycle embodied energy (LCEE) of buildings and their flexible design characteristics within the context of traditional buildings. To this end, traditional houses in Ankara, belonging to the Ottoman era, that had previously been studied for a PhD dissertation (Şahin 1995) were considered appropriate for this research and 10 of the oldest buildings were selected. The architectural drawings and related information were obtained from the said dissertation and the buildings were visited in August 2021. This information was then used to redrawn the house plans in order to identify the existence of flexible vi design characteristics compiled from literature. Thereafter, 3D building models were produced in Revit software and the bills of quantities were obtained; which were then multiplied with pertinent proxy data from the Inventory of Carbon and Energy (ICE) v2.0 database to calculate the energy consumed in the construction and use stages. Finally, the initial, recurring, additional initial embodied, and demolition energy values were obtained for the different service life scenarios, for LCEE comparisons. This study demonstrated that traditional Ottoman houses with a service life of more than 100 years have flexible design strategies that are given in the literature. Although these strategies caused an increase in the building’s LCEE by approximately 0.6 to 9.2%; it was still much lower than the energy needed for material replacements, which was 75.7 to 93.1% of LCEE. Additionally, in comparison to buildings with a service-life of 50-year cycles, up to 31% of savings in the total embodied energy were achieved.

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Citation Formats
E. Kılıç, “The relationship between life cycle embodied energy and flexible design characteristics of traditional Ottoman houses in Ankara,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2021.