Some Examples of Turkish Houses with Wooden Frame in the Seismic Zone Anatolia

Abstract

Wooden frame Turkish houses in the area encompassed by the Ottoman Empire have their own special characteristics from the point of view of the order of the rooms, the design plan and the construction system. The earliest examples of these houses have been dated to the 17th century Today, there are few remaining examples of the first Turkish houses with an open hall hayat, wooden frame construction system, adobe fill, double rows of windows and mostly directed towards their own courtyard. In Turkish houses that passed through various developmental stages, the open hall was brought into a more protected arrangement and beside the types of open hall plan, the plan with inner hall sofa, corner hall and central hall were created; however, the use of the wooden frame construction system continued. The wooden frame construction system was preferred because it was the continuation of a tradition and because it suited the geography of Anatolia, located in an earthquake zone and rich in forested areas. In the wooden frame method; the assembly details were basic and the house could be put together like a tent, generally the frame was filled stones, adobes and bricks and sometimes wood and sometimes there would be no fill at all. The importance of the wooden frame houses did not receive much attention and were preferred to concrete apartment buildings until the 1970s, but their importance was noticed in our day even as old, important examples were torn down. So, using existing examples, the purpose of this study is to examine, document and make wooden frame Turkish houses known according to historical development.