A conceptual framework for analyzing resilience in vernacular Ottoman cities: integrating historical patterns and new resilience characteristics

Abstract

This study aims to develop a conceptual framework for analyzing resilience in vernacular and historical Ottoman cities to address the limited applicability of current resilience frameworks to historical built environments. By combining contemporary resilience theory with vernacular studies, this research provides a novel methodology to assess how these built environments endured, adapted and evolved over centuries against various stressors. The framework is formed through interpretive analysis of recurring patterns identified across historical data, supported by a qualitative synthesis of the resilience literature. After data collection, the resilience framework is based on two main approaches in resilience scholarship: contextual questioning and characteristic-based categorization. This study abstracts generalizable patterns from cumulative historical evidence. This study identifies four types of urban resilience and ten urban resilience characteristics from contemporary literature in the Ottoman context. Furthermore, two original characteristics are introduced: delayed collaboration, referring to intergenerational contributions to urban maintenance, and usefulness/relevance, which indicates functional continuity. The framework is primarily conceptual and does not provide empirical validation. Future research should apply this framework through empirical case studies of Ottoman cities. This framework is conceptually grounded and analytically replicable for interpreting resilience in vernacular and historical built environments. The framework abstracts generalizable patterns from historical evidence. Moreover, this research introduces two original resilience characteristics and demonstrates that socioecological resilience was embedded in Ottoman urban systems long before the formal conceptualization of the term.