Adaptive Re-Use Approaches on Converted Museums in The Walled City of North Nicosia

Buildings can live much older than human beings thus, the adaptation of existing buildings into new uses have been widely spread around the world. However, architectural heritage buildings have many significant values such as the picturesque, architectural and cultural values. In addition to, financial and social values which constitutes an important resource for whole humanity. Although these heritage buildings could be used for different functions other than the original use that they were specially designed for, the reconciliation of conservation needs with the contemporary development should be well balanced. The process of conservation through adaptive re-use, then can offer a new life for the existing buildings, while at the same time proving the continuity of their significant values. This thesis aims to contribute to the adaptation of heritage buildings, especially the domestic ones into museums, by considering both the internationally accepted documents of architectural conservation and also contemporary museology principles and necessities in museum design .The argument of this thesis is evaluated and adopted through four case studies from the Walled City of North Nicosia , which constitutes all the converted museum from domestic uses; namely the Dervish Pasha Mansion , the Eaved House , the Lusignan House and Dr. Fazil Küçük Museum. The main research question here is how to adapt existing buildings, originally built for domestic purposes, into a museum successfully, for this purpose. Qualitative research methods are employed through on-site investigations and document surveys of explicit case studies, and through literature reviews on the main research topics ; conservation through adaptive re-use and museum design. The findings of this research proves formulating a special set of guidelines reconciling both the internationally accepted principles of adaptive reuse and principles on the contemporary requirement of museums design, which can be applied for the evaluation of any such case for the success of the adaptation process, and can be used by all parties involving this process, such as the responsible architects and authorities.