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Towards Sustainable Architecture: The Transformation of the Built Environment in İstanbul, Turkey

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Abstract

Towards the end of the twentieth century, new consumerist lifestyles coupled with technological innovations and rising environmental consciousness have changed the concept in environmental and building designs. Conscientious developers and city governments see green building and environmental designs as a useful approach to counter the adverse effects of global warming, fossil energy consumption and nature destruction that have threatened ecological and human health. Today, sustainable architecture and green design have become an important agenda of the built environment. The aim of this study is to examine the efforts made towards constructing sustainable office buildings in İstanbul, Turkey. In İstanbul, due to its unique location and historical background, innovative, modern and sustainable buildings have been built in its newly developed central city area, such as Büyükdere Avenue. Using a chosen set of green building rating systems as criteria, assessment was focused on site-environment, energy-water, materials-resources and indoor environmental quality. High-rise office buildings selected for this survey were Metrocity Office Building, İşbank Headquarters and the Akbank Tower along Büyükdere Avenue. Results showed that standards achieved were low but they were symbolic of a self-initiated will in line with the international agenda towards urban ecological conservation.

But design, like sustainability, is a dynamic and living process… A design is sustainable, or it is not. If it is not sustainable, changes can be made to make it sustainable. If it is sustainable, by necessity it will be changing and evolving. Sustainability is not static – it is iteratively changing, based on evolving knowledge that connects science and design

(Williams 2007 : 17).

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Associate Professor, Dr. Meltem Yılmaz of the Department of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design, Hacettepe University for the comments and feedback she has provided for the paper.

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Correspondence to Selin Mutdoğan .

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Mutdoğan, S., Wong, TC. (2011). Towards Sustainable Architecture: The Transformation of the Built Environment in İstanbul, Turkey. In: Wong, TC., Yuen, B. (eds) Eco-city Planning. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0383-4_12

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