RE-USE OF TRADITIONAL OLIVE MILLS IN THE CONTEXT OF ALTERNATIVE TOURISM FOR SUSTAINABLE SOCIAL an‎d ECOLOGIC ENVIRONMENT ; INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE AT AYVACIK COASTAL AREA

Being an olive and olive oil production geography for 2600 years, Western Anatolia accommodates hundreds of traditional olive oil mills which have the characteristics of industrial heritage in different scales. The absence of academic comprehensive study provided us to make a research on the building stock and their characteristics (This research has been supported by Yıldız Technical University Scientific Research Projects Coordination Department. Project Number: 2010-03-01 GEP01) named as “Reuse of old olive mills in Aegean Region in the context of tourism”. During the process of the research; 70 of 127 detected (recorded) traditional olive oil mills were documented and studied. This paper is basically focused on sustainability of building stock traditional (olive oil mills) olive culture and tourism activity in Ayvacık Region which is an important olive oil production geography.