Climate Change and the Resilience of Collective Memories: The Case Study of Fındıklı in Rize, Türkiye

This dissertation seeks to understand the climatic conditions in the past as a shaping factor of vernacular landscapes and then analyzes the impacts of climate change today on vernacular architecture conceptualized as a form of cultural heritage. These vernacular heritage sites present how local people without expertise have shaped the traditional vernacular landscapes by constructing buildings, bridges, mills, and roads in line with the climatic conditions of the time. However, the specific climate and place that shaped the construction of these vernacular buildings are today changing. Although some local communities adapted their traditional buildings to these changes to meet changing demands of local people, climate change created new challenges by causing a loss of resilience in some other sites. Climate stories of vernacular architecture will shed light on the loss of knowledge in the area, which led to the destruction of historic buildings and settlements. Under the pressure of changing climate, vernacular heritage shows an example of climate resilience, which constantly regrows, reshapes, and readapts. This continuous transformation of the built and natural environment with culture, identities, and attitudes reveals how communities perceive climate change and how different groups and individuals acted in the past to overcome the issues. Past climate knowledge of local communities is embedded in vernacular heritage, but it has nevertheless largely been overlooked or forgotten by the next generations. The homeowners consider these buildings pre-dated and find it difficult to update them to the requirements of modern lifestyles. The climate adaptation of these buildings can advocate building climate-resilient settlements and cities for our future not only in practice but also in policy. Looking at successful and unsuccessful adaptation practices of vernacular settlements in rural settings can conclude how climate adaptation of vernacular heritage can contribute to building climate-resilient cities. The selected case study of Fındıklı in Rize which is located in the Eastern Black Sea region of Turkey illustrates the relation between past local knowledge of vernacular architecture and changing environmental conditions. And the best way to understand this interlinkage is through the analysis of vernacular landscapes in relation to the climatic conditions that shaped them. This dissertation first identifies the historic link between climate and vernacular buildings and lifestyles. It then focuses on the challenges of climate change as a threat to vernacular landscapes through the lens of spatial planning decisions and local actions. In addition, it identifies the local challenges of preserving these vernacular buildings. Finally, it reveals how climate knowledge of vernacular architecture can inspire solutions to cope with future climate change. This dissertation builds on a diverse methodological approach to address the complex relation of climate as shaping and changing factor of vernacular heritage. The historical relation between lifestyles, knowledge of people, historic buildings, and local climate is explored through the analysis of local, regional, and national archival sources, including books, images, newspapers from the case study area, and unstructured interviews with different stakeholders including homeowners, farmers, and constructors in the selected case area. It then identifies the vulnerabilities of the rural areas under the present challenges of climate change through the GIS mapping of floods, landslides, and heritage sites at a spatial scale. A mixed method of qualitative and quantitative approaches is used to highlight the issues of changing climate exacerbated by spatial planning decisions and local practices at the city, landscape, and building scales. Implications of these findings can inform policy actors and decision-makers to develop actions and policies to tackle the effects of climate change in the cities based on the lessons learnt from vernacular heritage through the analysis of spatial planning decisions and local actions. The results from the case study demonstrated that river and forest management and the vernacular knowledge relating to it can have a great impact on building climate resiliency in the cities. Other cities in global context can adopt the nature- based solutions such as giving back the space for forests and rivers by reconsidering the past practices.and weakened relationship of land, water and settlements.