In this days, sensitivity to environmental issues of people increased together with the awareness of the concept of sustainability. The structures, which are built in a rural residential area, are integrated with the natural environment. In Turkey, local traditional structures are structures that can be produced easily in place and materials are being used wisely. These houses which are used renewable natural materials carries a lot of features of the sustainable approach. Traditional structures have been shaped by the region where they are, because of the necessity. In this study, materials and construction systems of the traditional buildings which are located in rural areas are discussed and the buildings have been evaluated the context of ecology and sustainability.

In Turkey, heat loss from existing and new buildings constitutes a large part of energy waste, so usage of suitable construction material is quite important. The building selected in this study was analyzed by applying different building materials considering the annual energy consumption allowed, and according to the different heat zones and different thicknesses of insulation material in relation to demand. The most suitable building material in terms of energy and cost uptake and cost given to the regions was determined; the results were measured in the study in terms of the maximum allowable annual heating energy requirement and the optimum values were determined. Comparison of the optimum values and the total energy consumption rates was conducted for the analyzed cities.

The earthquake performance of structures with seismic isolation is much better than that of fixed-base structures, and the application of seismic insulation ensures both structural integrity and the protection of the items present in the structures. The base-isolation system is used to extend the fundamental period of vibration of the structure and to obtain higher value from base-isolated structures relative to the fixed-base structure. Historical masonry mosques could be strengthened using a base-isolation technique. In this study, a historical masonry mosque was organized and modelled using SAP2000 software. Nonlinear Time History analyses were carried out for the historical masonry structure, firstly for the fixed-base mosque and secondly for the base-isolated mosque with lead rubber bearing (LRB). The use of a base-isolator system caused an increase in the historical mosque’s period, reducing the displacements, acceleration, and force applied on the mosque and the resulting structural deformation; the results of the analysis indicate a significant improvement in the seismic behavior. The modelling results show that such historical masonry buildings (especially those with high and delicate minarets) can be vulnerable to major earthquakes, and it may be useful to examine strengthening strategies for these buildings.

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Turkey is in seismically active region, so many earthquakes occur in this country in the last decades. Ancient worship buildings are vulnerable to seismic activity, as many historical buildings. So, it is important to understand that building’s behavior under seismic actions. In this paper, fifteen masonry worship building has been selected which are located and built-in different region in Antalya. The main reason for the paper is to assess the seismic vulnerability of worship building by using a new approximate method. The method which is proposed in this paper aims at a simple and fast procedure based on a simplified geometric approach for immediate screening of masonry buildings at risk.