Tag: Construction

  • Sani Şener’s Success Story on CNN International

    Sani Şener’s Success Story on CNN International

    TAV Grubu CEO’su Sani Şener, CNN International’da yayınlanan “Global Exchange” programında, Türk inşaat şirketlerinin 2000’li yıllardan itibaren bölgede büyük başarı sağladığını söyledi. Şener, hükümetin dış politikasının ve Türkiye’nin tarihten gelen yakınlığının başarının zeminini hazırladığını belirtti. Şener ayrıca TAV’ın İpek Yolu üzerinde hayata geçirdiği projelerle yarattığı başarı hikayesini anlattı.

    via Sani Şener CNN International’da Türk şirketlerinin başarısını anlattı – YouTube.

  • Istanbul blaze kills 11 construction workers

    Istanbul blaze kills 11 construction workers

    The suspected cause of the fire was an electrical heater, the district mayor said

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    At least 11 workers have died after fire swept through a tent at a building site in the Turkish city of Istanbul.

    The blaze happened in the district of Esenyurt at the construction site of a shopping centre.

    TV footage showed fire crews, working under floodlights in the snow, recovering the bodies of the workers from the ruins of the tent.

    Esenyurt Mayor Necmi Kadioglu said the suspected cause of the fire was an electrical heater.

    Images from the scene showed adjacent tents had also been burned down.

    “Between 11 and 14 workers are believed to have died in the fire,” Mr Kadioglu told state-run TRT television from the scene.

    “This is the site of a shopping mall. It appears the fire has something to do with the heating problem as it is freezing here,” he added.

    City officials said an investigation had been opened.

    via BBC News – Istanbul blaze kills 11 construction workers.

  • Istanbul sees history razed in the name of regeneration

    Istanbul sees history razed in the name of regeneration

    Turkey’s cultural capital is undergoing a huge construction programme that is driving out communities

    Constanze Letsch in Istanbul
    • guardian.co.uk,
    Istanbul construction 007
    The Zorlu business centre, scheduled to open in 2013, is just one of many massive construction projects in Istanbul, Turkey. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty

    A few hundred metres from the bustling Taksim Square in Istanbul, the sound of jackhammers reverberates through the street: demolitions in the nearby neighbourhood of Tarlabasi are under way despite legal objections from residents, architects, and human rights groups.

    Empty buildings, many of which date from the late 19th century and are used to house a large part of Istanbul’s former Greek population, have already been gutted, waiting for their turn. In the area’s main street, only the local barber and one cornershop still hang on.

    Tamer Bekar, a 70-year Tarlabasi resident, shakes his head in dismay. “They are looting all the empty buildings, they take windows, doors, cables to sell for a few pennies. The municipality does nothing to protect these historical buildings,” he says. “There are not many people left but everything I have is here. I cannot go anywhere else at this age. I don’t know what to do.”

    Up to 278 buildings will be demolished to make way for a high-end construction project that will include homes, offices, hotels and a shopping mall. Those who could afford it have already moved. “I don’t want to move into a tower block outside the city,” Bekar says. “What would I do in the middle of nowhere?”

    But the Tarlabasi renewal project is just one of many in the most frenetic redevelopments Istanbul has known for a generation. About 50 neighbourhoods in Istanbul alone are earmarked for urban renewal projects, and 7.5bn Turkish liras (£2.69bn) has been set aside for Istanbul’s public development projects in 2012, according to the Istanbul metropolitan municipality mayor, Kadir Topbas.

    The formerly Roma neighbourhood of Sulukule has already been razed to make way for “Ottoman-style” townhouses, and the transport minister, Binali Yildirim, has vowed to go ahead with the construction of a third Bosphorus bridge that, environmentalists and urban planners warn, would further increase traffic congestion and lead to the destruction of Istanbul’s last forest areas and water reservoirs.

    The prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, meanwhile, has promised an array of mega-projects including a 25-mile canal between the Black and the Marmara seas as well as two new cities on both sides of the Bosporus, each housing at least 1 million people – the centre of his election campaign.

    “We need to face it,” Topbas said in a press conference after the devastating 2011 earthquakes in Van that killed 644 people, “we need to rebuild the entire city.”

    Now the Turkish government is preparing a new law that will grant the prime minister and the public housing development administration sole decisive power over which areas will be developed, and how. The law will overrule all other preservation and protection regulations, and allow the government to declare any area in Turkey a zone of risk.

    Affected house-owners will have the choice of either demolishing their buildings themselves, or letting the government do it for them – in exchange for compensation.

    The law’s advocates argue that it will enable the government to make cities safer against the ever-present risk of earthquakes without a lengthy legal process.

    However, a growing number of critics point out that it will serve as a pretext to open valuable land to speculation, and drive low-income groups from city centres – as has already happened in Sulukule and is happening in Tarlabasi.

    And the government’s appetite for ever more ambitious development projects is not likely to be sated in the near future.

    According to the Turkish Contractors Association’s predictions, the construction sector, which contributes about 6% to the economy, faces decline and much fiercer competition abroad in 2012: domestic urban renewal projects, estimated to generate £250bn of profit – £55bn in Istanbul alone – are seen as a convenient alternative.

    Detached

    Professor Gülsen Özaydin, head of the urban planning department at the Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts Istanbul, says: “There is no urban planning that sees the city as a whole. Projects are completely detached from one another, and take no heed of the existing urban fabric, or the people living there. That’s very dangerous for the future of a city.”

    Özaydin criticises the complete lack of public debate prior to the announcement of major reconstruction projects. “Expert views are rarely taken into consideration,” she adds. “We only learn of projects like Taksim Square from the newspapers. How can that be?”

    Neither the names of the architects nor the financial scope of the Taksim project have been disclosed to the public. For the architect and urban activist Korhan Gümüs, the main problem is the lack of transparency and the disregard of the people affected: “This reflects the highly centralised politics of the Turkish state and the rigidity of the national programme that it advocates,” he says.

    “National programmes don’t require any form of participation, they don’t need different opinions and thoughts. But cities need experience, they need research, they need questioning, thoughtfulness and creativity.

    “If you leave a city at the mercy of speculators, it will die. If you try to make money only by way of new construction projects, the city will end up poorer, not richer.”

    Mücella Yapici of the Istanbul Chamber of Architects paints a similarly bleak picture: “Urban poverty will increase. People evicted from their houses not only lose their home, but also their jobs, their neighbourhood, and their social ties.”

    Tower block developments on the far outskirts of the city further isolated disadvantaged groups. “A city should bring people together, not segregate them,” she says.

    “But in Istanbul we will end up in a situation where everybody will be afraid of one another – the rich will fear the poor and vice versa. It will be the end of social peace in the city.”

  • Are Skyscrapers Torpedoing the World’s Economies?

    Are Skyscrapers Torpedoing the World’s Economies?

    Jennifer Hattam

    Design / Urban Design

    Does pride goeth before a fall, as the biblically based saying has it, for the world’s booming cities too? A new report by an investment bank that postulates an “unhealthy” link between skyscraper construction and financial crisis suggests it might.

    Barclays Capital recently issued a warning to investors about avid skyscraper-builders China and India, noting an “unhealthy correlation between construction of the next world’s tallest building and an impending financial crisis”:

    [O]ften the world’s tallest buildings are simply the edifice of a broader skyscraper building boom, reflecting a widespread misallocation of capital and an impending economic correction.

    But Isn’t Density Good?

    The news might come as a bit of a downer to advocates of greater density, typically an environmental plus, but the focus of Barclays’ attention appears to be “bubble” construction, where skyscrapers and other skyline-defining buildings are erected because they can be (due, in China’s case, to cheap liquidity) or as shows of economic might, not because they provide a well-thought-out solution to the city’s needs.

    © Jennifer Hattam

    More growth is on the horizon in Istanbul.

    It’s a warning Turkey would also do well to heed. Construction cranes dot the Istanbul skyline despite a 26 percent drop in housing sales that has left 600,000 residences standing empty in the city and its outskirts, according to the recent documentary film “Ecumenopolis: City Without Limits. Meanwhile, thousands, if not millions of people live in substandard housing, including an estimated 1 million illegally constructed buildings that would be seriously vulnerable in a major earthquake. Many of the city’s tall new developments are also far away from the city center, further snarling Istanbul’s already nightmarish traffic.

    Questions about how the city’s ever-growing population can best be accommodated are essentially absent, however, from debate about new skyscrapers, which typically focuses on issues of aesthetics.

    Looks Over Livability

    While the architects behind the planned “Metropol Istanbul,” a vast project including a 300-meter-high tower, boast that the complex will “bring character to Istanbul” (quite a claim for a city with more than 2,000 years of architectural history), critics fret about such developments’ effects on the classic silhouette.

    Last week, the Turkish prime minister issued an order to preserve Istanbul’s skyline, enforcement of which could even include demolishing existing buildings, according to the culture and tourism minister. How new buildings impact transportation, neighborhood cohesion, and environmental sustainability seems a long way from getting on the table as well.

    via Are Skyscrapers Torpedoing the World’s Economies? : TreeHugger.

  • ***30-story building built in 15 days*** Construction time lapse *View Fullscreen*

    ***30-story building built in 15 days*** Construction time lapse *View Fullscreen*

    What can you accomplish in 360 hours?
    The Chinese sustainable building company, Broad Group, has yet attempted another impossible feat, building a 30-story tall hotel prototype in 360 hours, after building a 15-story building in a week earlier in 2011.

    You may ask why in a hurry, and is it safe? The statistics in the video can put you in good faith. Prefabricated modular buildings has many advantages over conventional buildings.

    Higher precision in fabrication (+/- 0.2mm).
    More coordinated on-site construction management.
    Shorter construction time span.
    Lower construction waste.
    Also many other health and energy features are included in Broad Sustainable Buildings (BSB)

    The building was built over last Christmas time and finished before New Years Eve of 2012.

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    An Introduction to BROAD SUSTAINABLE BUILDING CO., LTD Jan.11, 2012
    Established in March, 2009, BROAD SUSTAINABLE BUILDING CO., LTD is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BROAD Group, solely operates the magnitude-9 earthquake resistant, 5x more energy efficient, 20x purer air, 90% factory-built, and 1% construction waste Broad Sustainable Buildings (BSB).
    BSB headquarter and its R&D Center are situated in the Xiangyin County of Hunan Province in Southern China, with 80,000sqm workshops, 900 employees in 2011. In 2012 with 220,000sqm workshops, 12,000 employees, and in 2013 with 360,000sqm workshops and 19,000 employees, reaching an annual production and installation capacity of 10 million sqms. BSB’s central goal is:
    1. Improving R&D of BSB technologies, setting up supply chains
    2. Sell BSBs in compliance with local regulations in the Hunan building market.
    3. Transfer BSB technology to 100 partnership enterprise, every Chinese province and distributed evenly in each nation worldwide.
    By December, 2011, BSB technology reached finalization, altogether with 12 BSBs built in Changsha, Xiangyin, Shanghai, Zhejiang and Mexico and developed 2 franchise partners in Ningxia and Fujian with identical factory sizes to the Xiangyin BSB Factory. Another 10 Chinese & international potential partners are in negotiation.
    BROAD envisions in the near future, there will be one BSB among three buildings worldwide, allowing all men and women to share BSB’s solace. Proving that by responsible use of technology, earth’s environment and human living can be elevated simultaneously.
    Lin Gang Industrial Zone, Xiangyin County, Hunan Tel: 86-731-84086266 Email: bsbs@broad.net www.broad.com/bsb

  • Saudi Arabia, Turkey to strengthen links in construction sector

    Saudi Arabia, Turkey to strengthen links in construction sector

    The Saudi-Turkish Joint Commission meeting takes place in Riyadh.

    By GHAZANFAR ALI KHAN I ARAB NEWS

    Published: Dec 26, 2011 01:50 Updated: Dec 26, 2011 01:52

    eco Turkey

    RIYADH: Saudi Arabia and Turkey signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in Riyadh on Sunday for cooperation in the construction sector, said Turkish Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan.

    The Turkish minister also called on Saudi businessmen to invest more in his country and sought Saudi help to speed up negotiations to endorse a free trade agreement with the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as early as possible.

    Caglayan, speaking after his talks with senior Saudi officials including Dr Tawfiq Al-Rabiah, minister of commerce and industry; Ibrahim Al-Assaf, minister of finance; and Jobara Al-Suraisry, minister of transport, said the private sector MoU in construction will encourage the two sides to forge closer ties in this field.

    The signing ceremony was attended by the Turkish minister together with Saudi officials.

    About 30 Turkish companies including giants such as Yuksel and Gama are active in the Kingdom.

    On the subject of FTA, he called on the Kingdom “to lobby for the speedy conclusion of the FTA with the GCC”.

    “We very much value the Saudi contribution in this process because they are the engine of growth in the GCC,” said the Turkish minister in response to a question.

    “I brought the issue up in meetings I have had with Saudi ministers here,” he added.

    He said he had also discussed the issue of lifting visa requirements for Turkish nationals with Saudi officials.

    In his speech at the joint meeting of Saudi and Turkish officials co-chaired by Al-Rabiah, Caglayan said Saudi Arabia should lift visa requirements for Turkish businessmen.

    Turkey, he said, hopes to attract sizable Saudi investments in key industries and it also eyes a bigger slice in the huge multi-billion dollar Saudi infrastructure and construction projects.

    Caglayan, who was accompanied by top-notch executives and representatives of almost 100 Turkish companies, said Saudi companies have $1.4 billion in investments in Turkey.

    On the other hand, Turkish companies have $600 million in investments in Saudi Arabia.

    He pointed out that Turkey is set to liberalize land and property sales to foreigners, including Saudis.

    “The draft law is in parliament, and we will adopt it soon, allowing greater flexibility on this issue,” he added.

    On the trade and investment front, the minister said the two-way trade increased 30 percent last year, reaching $4.5 billion. In the first 10 months of this year, the volume had already reached $5.1 billion, he noted.

    The minister said he expects the volume to reach $6 billion in 2012, stressing that he wants to see a bigger share of Turkish products in the imports of Saudi Arabia.

    In his speech in Riyadh, he said that Turkey — with a booming robust economy and stable government — is the perfect place to make long-term investments.

    “That is why companies from the EU come to Turkey for investment to capitalize on the vibrant economy, utilize the young labor force and expand to third markets in our neighborhood,” he said.

    Making mention of improvements in attracting foreign investment to Turkey, the minister recalled that Turkey received $10.9 billion in FDI in the first nine months of this year, more than twice the amount for the same period a year ago. One important fact was that 87 percent of international capital inflows to Turkey in the given period were from financially troubled EU countries.

    Hence, he reiterated that the Kingdom and Gulf states should come forward to forge closer commercial ties with Turkey.

    via Saudi Arabia, Turkey to strengthen links in construction sector – Arab News.