Relation of Urban Transformation Projects with Locality and Their Effects on Energy Conservation: The Case of Diyarbakır

Abstract

Urban transformation projects which started for the urbanization of newly constructed cities in the history of Turkey are generally appears to build new housing projects for last years. Large amount of housing need caused by rapid increase in urban population has changed the face of the cities with these new constructions. These changes in the cities have increased the need for energy and pointed out the efficient and correct use of energy resources. Local resources are the simplest, accessible and efficient references of passive energy systems for energy conservation and play a major role in revealing the distinctive characteristics of cities. To show how the local features of a city contributes to decrease the energy consumption amount increased by urban transformation projects, two sample projects designed for the same climatic region were analyzed. First of these projects in the selected city Diyarbakır was designed by the traditional architecture principles and the second project was designed without references from the city’s local sources. Traditional design principles used in the first project were applied to the second project to improve the annual cooling and heating energy demand and show how these principles change results. The principles were assessed with comparative energy analyses.