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III. EUROPEAN CONFERENCE ON SCIENCE, ART & CULTURE
ECSAC’18 – NORTHERN CYPRUS
Gazimağusa, October12-14, 2018

OP-22 RESILIENCE’ AS A SMART PARADIGM FOR DESIGNING THE BUILT
ENVIRONMENTS IN ARID REGIONS:
A CASE STUDY FROM LEFKE REGION IN NORTHERN CYPRUS

Cemaliye Sunalp GÜRÇINAR , M. Selen Abbasoğlu ERMIYAGIL , Gülay ÇETINKAYA
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1
ÇIFTÇIOĞLU 3
1 European University of Lefke, Faculty of Architecture, Department of Architecture, Lefke, Northern Cyprus
2 European University of Lefke, Faculty of Architecture, Department of Graphic Design, Lefke, Northern Cyprus
3 European University of Lefke, Faculty of Architecture, Department of Landscape Architecture, Lefke, Northern Cyprus

Resilience is a smart paradigm and/or approach that can play a vital role in designing of resilient built environments
in arid regions, such as in Cyprus Island. There are several definitions regarding the term of ‘resilience’. Basically,
resilience refers to the capacity and/or ability of a system to tolerate, to absorb, and to recover disturbances, or to
transform a new stable system after a disturbance. The theory of resilience was first developed in the field of ecology
by C.S. Holling in 1935. The approach has been a growing topic of interest for a variety of disciplines (e.g. economy,
architecture and landscape architecture); therefore, it has been adapted to the relevant disciplines. For example, architects
and landscape architects expect that different components of the built environments (e.g. buildings and home gardens)
will be resilient in the face of extreme temperature, humidity and ‘urban heat island effect’ in Northern Cyprus. For
this reason, the resilience of the built environments is a crucial issue for designing more liveable built environments as
well as improving the urban society’s health. Within this context, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the resilience
of buildings and home gardens against the three disturbing factors (e.g. drought, land use change, and humidity) in
Lefke Region of North Cyprus. The major objectives of the study were (i) to assess the resilience of the 50 buildings
with a vernacular value and (ii) to evaluate the resilience of the buildings’ home gardens. The method of the study was
based on the analysis of a set of appropriate resilience assessment indicators for buildings and home gardens, which
were developed through reviewing the relevant literature. The relevant data were collected from February to June 2016
in the region. The collected data were analysed on a 5-1 Likert scale, where 1 indicates the lowest degree and 5 indicates
the highest degree of resilience. The results of the analysis revealed that the average relative values of the building and
home garden system resilience are respectively 2,22 (low) and 2,49 (moderate) out of maximum 5 points. Evaluation
of the findings also uncovered that diversity, traditional knowledge, and connectivity are the key indicators to measure
and interrelate the resilience of the both systems. Finally, we suggest that the results of the study can draw attention of
planners, policy makers, and construction industry to the theory of resilience and development of a national strategy
for designing resilient built environments in Northern Cyprus.
Keywords: Resilience, Built Environment, Resilient Assessment Indicators, Lefke Region.

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AKADEMI .