Turkey: Comparison of Traditional and Modern Samples

In this paper low energy passive strategies in building design have been analysed for five different climatic zones of Turkey through comparison of traditional and some modern samples. The climatic zones of Turkey are; mild humid, mild dry, cold, hot humid and hot dry zones. All of the traditional samples in these zones, which were built before nowadays ’ construction and energy supply technology, are well responsive to the local environmental conditions and therefore they are energy efficient. But the modern samples constructed with today’s advanced building technologies have no same consciousness in spite of the possibilities offered by the sophisticated simulation tools in energy area. We should not forget that sustainable architecture should start with understanding of vernacular architecture. Therefore the aim of this study is to remind designers that they should take lessons from the traditional samples through implementation of their strategies with new materials and technologies in new building design. In the study first, the climate responsive strategies in the traditional samples are introduced and then some samples in some climatic zones were compared with the modern buildings through energy simulations to see the importance rank of design parameters and priority rank between insulation and thermal mass depending on climatic characteristic of the zone. Finally, the importance of passive intelligence on energy efficiency has been stressed through the energy analysis of a high-tech building in Istanbul equipped with very expensive BMS (building management system)