Ri̇sk assessment and control recommendations for interior design in terms of active fire safety in repurposed historic buildings

Historical buildings embody the architectural and cultural attributes of the period in which they were constructed, serving as essential components of cultural heritage. Over time, these structures may lose their original functions due to environmental and structural factors. Through adaptive reuse, historical buildings can be restored and repurposed for new functions, ensuring both their preservation and the sustainability of cultural heritage. However, one of the critical challenges during this transformation is the design and implementation of effective fire safety systems in interior spaces—particularly under the constraints imposed by conservation principles that limit structural intervention. In the context of interior architecture, it is vital that fire safety be addressed in an integrated manner with the aesthetic and functional characteristics of the building. This study focuses on fire safety measures and design-based risk management strategies for the interiors of repurposed historical structures. It aims to develop practical risk assessment methodologies and propose a set of control and inspection checklist items tailored to such contexts. The first chapter emphasizes the importance of fire safety planning in the adaptive reuse process, outlining the study's objectives, scope, methodology, and hypotheses. The second chapter presents a literature review on cultural heritage, values associated with historical structures, and intervention limits defined in national and international conservation regulations. The third chapter examines disaster and emergency risk planning and provides a comparative analysis of national and international fire safety regulations applicable to historical buildings. This section also identifies applicable active fire protection methods and outlines limitations in current risk assessment and supervision practices. In the fourth chapter, structured interviews were conducted with fire detection and suppression system providers as well as with fire consulting and design firms. These interviews revealed challenges related to interior interventions, including aesthetic integration difficulties and technical constraints in implementing active fire safety networks within protected environments. In the final part of the study, based on the collected findings, a comprehensive risk assessment framework for interior fire safety was developed, accompanied by a control and inspection checklist aligned with active protection measures. This research aims to contribute a holistic perspective to protection-oriented safe design practices by incorporating risk-based evaluation methods within the discipline of interior architecture, specifically in the adaptive reuse process of historical structures. Keywords: Repurposing, Historic Buildings, Fire Safety, Risk Evaluation, Control List