Evaluation of thermal performance of traditional and modern residential buildings in the hot dry climatic zone of Turkey

The aim of climatically responsive building design is to use the building fabric to provide comfortable and healthy living spaces with minimum energy usage. Traditional houses were constructed in a way they were well-adjusted to the local climate by using the best suitable materials and building fabric components. This study emphasizes the importance of climate on building design by comparing a traditional house with a modern one in the hot and dry climatic zone of Turkey. Furthermore, it also shows that traditional architecture may help today's architects to understand how to secure healthy, comfortable and sustainable housing design strategies. On the basis of this argument, two houses in Mardin, a town situated in hot-dry zone of the South-eastern part of Turkey, one traditional and one contemporary, were selected and compared with each other in terms of their performance under the effect of climate.