Evaluation of Materials and Resources Criteria in LEED for Homes v.3 and v.4.1 via Diyarbakir Houses

Abstract

There are many traditional settlements and buildings in the world that are produced with public experience and determined to have environmentalist qualifications. None the less, it is known that most of the buildings constructed in recent years have contributed to the increase of environmental problems. Initiatives to reduce environmental damage have produced many methods for environmental assessment of settlements and buildings. One of these methods is the LEED certification system created by the USGBC. In spite of all the current approaches to environmental problems, in many regions of the world, the buildings and settlements that have been built under the guidance of a common culture for centuries are quite successful in terms of user, environment and life cycle, and these designs which do not have a certain designer are sustainable, have design features such as energy efficient, healthy in respect to its users and environment. However, it is possible that specific details of these successful designs in traditional architecture cannot find the appropriate equivalents in the criteria of current building evaluation and certification systems or that the score weights of the systems do not show parallelism with regional conditions. For these reasons, it is seen that these design approaches and the rational solutions created in line are not used in contemporary architectural design processes. The aim of this study is to examine the traditional buildings and settlements that contain successful solutions in the use of limited materials, systems and resources under the credit of Materials and Resources in LEED v.3 and v.4.1. In this context, a comprehensive surveyof sustainable environmental design and vernacular architectural heritage was conducted for the review and LEED v.3 and v.4.1 Materials and Resourcescredits were evaluated through the selected House C. As a result of the evaluation; environmental friendly House C in Diyarbakir which is thought to have positive effects on the level of resource consumption and waste generation, the health of the user and the environment, is assumed to receive a high score when evaluated with an appropriate assessment method, was not able to score. Development of prerequisites and credits for the evaluation of traditional buildings designed with local and cultural information and able to meet the needs of their users in both LEED and other green building certification systems in this context; will be more efficient and effective in terms of preservation and sustainability of vernacular architectural heritage.