Adapting the secondary houses to the primary houses: Mersin sample

Secondary houses are structures which are usually built in the areas with high physical attractiveness and are used by their users at certain times and periods in a year for recreational purposes like vacation, having rest and being out of the urban life. Because of various reasons, secondary houses, which are situated especially at coastal areas and are usually used for vacation, can be adapted to primary houses. While existing secondary houses are adapted to primary houses, because of being used for the whole year, their using type and user requirements become different. It's extremely important and necessary in terms of carrying out the architectural sustainability that structures which are designed as a secondary house should fulfill the user requirements while adapting to primay house in time. To carry out the sustainability in the process of adapting the primary houses to the secondary houses, the user requirements should be determined properly and flexible designs which should fulfill the various user requirements should be done. This research examines the secondary houses with its architectural respects, which are situated at the coastal areas of our country and are composed of dense settlements in general, and in four secondary houses (vacation sites) which are built in different periods in Mersin in detail. The study also identifies the spatial changes and determines users' requirements and usage types. In addition to this, the urban and social reasons of using the seondary houses as primary houses during the time and the requirements as necessitated due to this changing are studied. As a result of this determination and evaluation, the thesis determines the criterias which are required for flexible and sustainable design in secondary houses especially for the areas which have potential to be used as primary houses due to urban and social causes, and aims to determine a road map that steers design.