Last month I tried to redraw a Safranbolu house from a survey plan. I started with the corridor. Then I noticed the plan had none. Every room opened onto one big hall, and the hall was the whole organizing idea. That hall is the sofa, and it sits at the center of Turkish house design. Around it you get rooms that change jobs through the day, floors that change with the season, and upper levels that lean out over the lane. I haven’t lived in one of these houses. What follows comes from published surveys of Safranbolu, Urfa, Ormana and Güdül, and from redrawing their plans at my desk. I’ll walk through the hall, the climate, the walls and the interiors, then what a modern flat can borrow.
Why Is the Sofa the Heart of the House?
Most Ottoman-period houses grew outward from the middle. Builders placed a hall first and let the rooms gather around it. Each room got its own door onto that hall, so nobody walked through someone else’s space to reach a bed or a window. Light and air could cross the whole floor. My first sketch failed because I did what modern habit tells you to do. I drew four rooms and then tried to link them with a passage. The surveys work the other way around, and once I flipped my method the plan finally looked right. Researchers sort these halls into three forms, and each form pulls the hall a little further into the house.
What does “sofa” mean in a Turkish house?
It means the hall, and I misread it for a long time because I kept picturing a couch. The seating lives in the rooms instead. A low bench called a sedir runs under the windows, and a cupboard called a yüklük takes the bedding away every morning. One decorative-arts study gives the shelf depth as 12 to 15 cm, and I held a ruler against a shelf at home to see what that feels like. It’s a little wider than a paperback. That is enough for a few objects and nothing more, which is the point. With almost nothing standing in the middle of the floor, a bedroom at night can become a dining room by noon.
How did the sofa move indoors?
The oldest version was the outer sofa, open to the front like a gallery, and houses kept building it into the 19th century. Then the inner and central sofas arrived in the 18th century and spread through the 19th. The inner sofa sits inside the plan with one line of symmetry. The central sofa has two lines crossing at right angles, which lets rooms gather evenly on every side. Ula, in Muğla, has middle sofas with six and eight sides, and they look like the idea taken as far as it can go. I tried a central hall on the paper plan of my own flat. Each room ended up with a window onto the hall or the street, and the corridor disappeared. A hall full of shoes and boxes would undo all of it.
How Do These Houses Handle Heat and Cold?
Anatolian builders worked from the climate, not against it. The country has hot plains in the southeast and snowy towns in the highlands, so a single plan was never going to fit. Where it was hot, families moved into shade and thick stone. Where it was cold, they stacked living space upward and shifted between floors as the months changed. A study of Urfa, Kayseri and Safranbolu shows how different the three towns are. Kayseri’s average maximum is 30.7°C and Safranbolu’s is 40°C, and their winters are just as far apart. The houses follow the same logic everywhere, though. People change rooms before they change the thermostat.
How do Turkish houses stay cool in Urfa?
Urfa’s hot season runs seven to eight months, and the houses answer it with shade, stone and the eyvan, an open-sided room facing the courtyard. Each house carries two seasonal eyvans, and the courtyard cools once the sun drops. The lanes outside are only 2.00 to 2.50 m wide, so the walls throw shade across them most of the day. Kayseri took a different route. Its sofas reach 7 to 8 m in length and 5 to 7 m in height, which lets hot air collect far over people’s heads. Reading that, I looked up at my own low ceiling and felt a bit sorry for it. In a hot place I’d copy Urfa first, because a shaded outdoor room next to a cool interior costs far less to run than a second air conditioner.
Do families really change rooms with the seasons?
Safranbolu houses usually have three storeys, and the family shifted between levels as the weather turned. The town sits at 400 to 600 m, and the study records a winter minimum around −10°C. Up in the Taurus Mountains, Ormana houses add an ayazlık, a raised wooden terrace that averages about 250 cm across. It works as a sheltered porch without ever leaving the main walls. I borrowed the habit on paper. I picked the sunniest room in my flat as my winter base and the shadiest as my summer one, then saw how much of my furniture wanted to move. Most of it did.
What Are the Walls Made Of, and Why Does It Matter?
Cut one of these houses in section and the logic shows up fast. Heavy stone carries the ground floor, and light timber carries everything above it. The stone base holds an even temperature through the day, while the timber frame can reach out where masonry would collapse. In Ormana, walls run 65 to 75 cm thick under eaves of 60 to 70 cm. Güdül, near Ankara, mixes stone, mudbrick and timber, and its ground-floor walls often measure 70 to 85 cm. That much material explains why rooms inside feel steady from breakfast to dinner. It also explains why these houses look so solid from the lane.
Why do the upper floors stick out over the street?
Timber can cantilever, and stone can’t, so builders pushed the upper floor outward. These projections, called cumba, add floor area without taking any more of the lane. A survey of Güdül found projections on 32 of its 34 houses. Simple ones reach 30 to 75 cm, and bracket-supported ones reach 75 to 155 cm. Streets in the old quarter narrow to roughly 2 m, so extra room upstairs mattered a great deal. I think this is the most useful trick in the whole plan. A narrow footprint can still give you a wide room, plus a view down the lane.
Is timber-and-stone building still practical today?
Few people will build this way now, but the principle works at any scale. Put the heavy, cool material low and the light, warm one high. Restoration is where people get hurt. Reports from Ormana link dampness after 1975 to cement mortar, which traps moisture that old lime-based walls used to release. A conservation architect should look at any old wall before you patch it. ICOMOS publishes conservation charters that are free to read, and they show what careful repair looks like.
How Do You Bring Turkish House Design Into a Modern Home?
You don’t need a Bosphorus mansion. Turkish architects have been reworking these ideas since the 20th century, and Sedad Hakkı Eldem set much of that in motion. He studied the old plans closely and published Turkish House Plan Types in 1954. His followers kept the hall and the seasonal thinking and dropped most of the carving. I agree with that choice. Hand-laid timber infill made sense for old builders, and it makes little sense for a rented flat. When I plan a room now, I ask two things before anything else. What will the surfaces be made of, and where can I stand inside a real example?
Which materials give a Turkish interior its warmth?
Oak, stone and linen carry most of the feeling. Travertine stays cool underfoot, so it suits warm regions, and oak panelling or a timber ceiling echoes the old rooms. Kündekâri is the nail-free woodwork where small pieces lock into geometric patterns. Specialist carpenters still make it, and the price will be bespoke. I keep the palette neutral so the grain and the veining can do the decorating. If the budget allows only one splurge, I’d put it on a single surface, either a carved ceiling or a stone floor, and keep everything else plain.
Where can you see real examples before you design?
Safranbolu, Cumalıkızık near Bursa, Birgi and Mardin all keep houses you can walk through. For modern versions, look up the 1958 Bedri Rahmi Eyüpoğlu House and the 1968 Kamhi-Grünberg Twin Villa. A plan on paper can’t show you how afternoon light crosses a hall, and that light is the main thing these houses are built for. Small house museums change their hours often, so confirm locally before you travel.
Conclusion
My redrawn flat plan is still pinned above my desk. The corridor is gone, and the hall now has a bench at one end. Last week I caught myself calling that bench a sofa and laughed, because the survey authors would have winced. Turkish house design has changed how I read a floor plan. I look for the hall first now, and then I ask what job each room can take on. I’m not sure a rented flat can hold the whole idea. The shaded outdoor room is the piece I can’t solve yet.
FAQs
What is the sofa in a Turkish house?
The sofa is the central hall that all the rooms open onto. Air and light move through it, and the family uses it as one shared space. It isn’t furniture.
What is the difference between an inner sofa and a central sofa?
An inner sofa sits inside the plan and has one line of symmetry. A central sofa has two lines crossing at right angles, so rooms surround it on every side. Both types spread widely in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Why do old Turkish houses have upper floors that stick out?
The projections, called cumba, add floor area without widening the footprint. Surveys of Güdül measure simple ones at 30 to 75 cm and bracket-supported ones at 75 to 155 cm.
Can I use Turkish house ideas in a small apartment?
You can start with built-in seating, a bedding cupboard and one natural material such as oak. Together they let a single room serve several purposes during the day, which is the heart of the style.
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