Transformation of a traditional Urfa house into a guest house:Hacı Abo House

Historical buildings testify tothehistory of societies. In this context, traditional Urfa houses, which occupy an important place among the buildings reflecting the history, architecture, culture and life style of the areas in which the yare situated, have been the subject the area of this study. The civilizations that lived in, religious beliefs, geographical features and climate have played important roles in the formation of Urfa houses. It has been found out that Urfa houses, whose interior identity was examined with an architectural and spatial assessment analyzing their environmental features, location and climatic characteristics and studying their architectural features in planimetric, frontal and constructional aspects, have partly lost their authentic functions. Due to social changes, that historical houses lose the validity of their authentic functions arises as a general problem in our country, too as in Şanlıurfa. A refunctioning is needed in order to protect the historical buildings in the advancing process. Within the context of refunctioning of traditional Urfa houses as guest houses, especially the assessment of indoors of these houses as well as their structural assessment has been the focus of this study. The study has been detailed with the example of Hacı Abo House by examining both original and new functions of Urfa houses locationally in the light of various examples. In this study, considering that there may be need for accomodation facilities in Urfa, which is a tourism city with its historical and cultural richness, it is smphasized that the importance of the interior features of the historical buildings are important factors for the harmony of the new functions to be given to the traditional houses with their original structures and that in doors of historical houses are important in maintaining by preserving them. Keywords: Hacı Abo, refunctioning, guesthouse, Urfa houses, restoration, preserving