Research on thermal facilities according to the ecological architectural design criteria (the case of Bingol province and its hinterland)

Fast development of the tourism sector on a global scale has revealed some studies to diversify the types of tourism. The development and changes occurring in the tourism trends has brought new worries and the environmental damage has been discussed besides the opportunities that tourism created. Tourism facilities are being built without upper scale plans, without infrastructure and only with economic concerns. Because of the fact that these facilities bring permanent environmental damage, designers have started to search for sustainable solutions. Touristic facilities have 25 percent of the CO2 and SEG emissions worldwide. The visual pollution of the touristic facilities that located nearby natural treasures and their destructive effect on natural environment, reveal the necessity of giving importance to process of designing and constructing facilities in harmony with nature, once again. The thermal tourism also known as "Health Tourism" in recent years, has started to take a significant market share in our country which incorporates almost all the touristic activities in terms of natural, historical and cultural attractions. To minimize the environmental effects of rapid growth of construction process, designers have to take account ecological architectural design criteria. Creation of ecologically designed facilities will provide the development of the thermal tourism healthier and minimize destructive effects. In this study, it is aimed to provide guidelines for the facilities will be constructed from now on by revealing ecological characteristics of existing facilities with little impact of environmental effects. For this purpose, Bingöl province and its hinterland, with fully unexplored thermal resources and protecting ecological characteristics, have been preferred because of potential to resume its life in a sustainable manner. In this context, the existing thermal facilities in the region have been examined in accordance with ecological, architectural design criteria that are already determined, the problems have been identified and solutions have been proposed.