Ancient Service Systems in Historic Houses and Their Contribution to Sustainable Urban Development: The Case of Architect Sinan’s House

Abstract

The service systems of historic buildings, namely, heating, ventilation, cooling, lighting, and drainage play a critical role in the life cycle of buildings and sustainable urban development to preserve traditional knowledge systems. Therefore, a detailed investigation is required before, during, and after any preservation activity to ensure the historic integrity. Hence, this research aims to identify, investigate, and research the original service systems of a historic building, namely, the Architect Sinan's house in Ağırnas, Türkiye, to reveal and sustain these original passive survivability details to future generations and to learn from these details in present constructions. Main methods were site analysis, literature, archival research, and oral interviews. The findings showed that the case study building preserved most of its service systems, especially the lighting, ventilation, and heating details, but with minor or major destruction and deterioration. In conclusion, the study addressed a critical conservation problem in historic buildings, focusing particularly on original service systems of a case study building, and if not clearly identified, these details and traditional knowledge systems are prone to be lost.