Can the structural steel industry produce 300,000 houses a year?
Our country is among the countries with the highest earthquake risk and we have experienced severe earthquakes 'without being able to renew the bad building stock'. Considering the risks in Istanbul and the Marmara Region, we have not yet experienced 'the earthquake with the most severe consequences'. We die, we collapse; we know that the same thing will happen next, but is this all we can do?
Organized for the 25th time by the Turkish Structural Steel Association (TUCSA), which represents the 'structural steel industry' in Turkey, the 'Structural Steel Day' brought together the components of the construction industry. In the special session titled 'Living with Earthquake', Prof. Dr. Naci Görür once again said "We are an earthquake country, unfortunately our cities, especially Istanbul, are not prepared for earthquakes" to make the vicious circle 'visible'. In order to survive earthquakes with minimum damage, action must be taken swiftly for earthquake-resilient cities." TUCSA President Yener Gür*eş also gave the following message: "In order to live with earthquakes, we must move to earthquake-resistant construction and use the power of steel structures. The structural steel capacity of our country is sufficient.
3 million tons of steel and 72,000 blue-collar workers
Melih Şimşek, Vice President of TUCSA, was one of the speakers at that event, which was also attended by construction-related non-governmental organizations such as KİPTAŞ, İNDER, Türkiye İMSAD and GYODER. I asked Melih Şimşek, who is responsible for preventing the widespread use of structural steel in our country. His answer surprised me: "I think our civil engineers are responsible. Unfortunately, engineering has become a tool, our civil engineers in the private sector or in the public sector, the main task falls to them. Wouldn't the engineers of a country with so many 'devastating earthquakes' be curious about earthquake-resistant systems that have been applied in the world and have been successful after an earthquake? Wouldn't they go to those earthquake countries on vacation and take a look? Accordingly, wouldn't they say 'let's do it like this, not like that'? We do not say 'concrete is bad, steel is good'. If 651 percent of a country is under earthquake risk, the buildings must be either steel or wood. Today, since wood cannot be used, steel has risen in all earthquake countries and very severe earthquakes continue to occur there, but people do not die. So your structural systems will be steel. Tens of thousands died in the February 6, 2023 earthquakes and 86 percent of the buildings that collapsed were reinforced concrete buildings. The reinforced concrete system is not bad, but small mistakes in its manufacturing can have big and destructive consequences. For this reason, methods with more human initiative in the structural system are abandoned and those with less are preferred. What does the public (state) want? After the earthquake, it wants to 'heal the wounded as soon as possible', and before the earthquake, it wants 'structures that will not collapse in the earthquake'. We need to industrialize building production, we need to take the building to the field as ready as possible. With this method, it is possible to build buildings 24 hours a day, independent of the climate; it is possible to produce housing 3 times faster. As a company (Consera), we produced houses that will be a reference for structural steel in Malatya with İş Bank. We delivered 80 houses in 6 months, but if there were 500 houses, it would have been completed in 6 months." ¦ In a project of 1000 social housing units, 60-70 extra houses are produced! I also asked Melih Şimşek about the approach of the construction sector: "We told the construction sector and they say 'OK'. İNDER. GYODER. GYODER and KONUTDER, and we will go to the public sector together and tell them, and there is a great opportunity for our industry that produces construction materials. If we industrialize the traditional construction sector, we can export 'finished housing, not construction materials'. The export value per kilogram of construction materials is 0.60 dollars and this will increase to 7.5 dollars. Turkey should make its own revolution in construction on a global scale. As a young engineer, he was one of the business people who started to look for the answer to the question 'how can we avoid being destroyed in earthquakes'. For this purpose, he traveled to Japan in those days and studied structural steel applications. He was the one who coined the phrase "The structural steel sector has the infrastructure to produce at least 300 thousand houses a year", which is the answer to the question in the title of this article. We can meet him and become the largest modular construction country. Another important aspect of this business is 'sustainability', which increases recycling to 100 percent, minimizes energy consumption, and creates another gain for construction companies. For example, in Zekeriyaköy, I decided to 'talk in more detail for the public good'. Şimşek started with 'offsite construction' and said the following: "Toyota and Tesla, the world's biggest car manufacturers, have established modular housing factories. Earlier this year, Porsche Design and Abb Electronics partnered to build a robotic housing factory. Developed countries have started to meet their housing needs with construction factories like automobile factories. We are building 42 villas with structural steel; if we were building in reinforced concrete, 4 villas would be missing. In a social housing project of 1000 units, an extra 60-70 houses can be produced with structural steel. Construction time is already reduced to one third." We should act in a similar way. In order to produce 300 thousand earthquake-resistant modular steel houses per year, approximately 3 million tons of steel flat products, steel profiles and rolled profiles are needed. Our country has the steel material production to meet all these needs. For this amount of production, we need approximately 72 thousand blue-collar human resources, and we can employ this many people with short-term trainings."
