Yapı Fuarı – Turkeybuild Istanbul Welcomes 85,923 Visitors in Its 41st Year

The Building Materials, Construction and Technologies Fair – Turkeybuild Istanbul, one of the region's largest covering the Balkans, Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries, the Middle East and North Africa, and one of the world's 5 largest construction fairs, was visited by 85,923 people this year. The fair, held at Tüyap Congress and Exhibition Centre on 8-12 May, brought together over 90 renowned architects, industry experts and leaders from Turkey and around the world, including WikiHouse Foundation founder Alastair Parvin, architect Asif Khan and Achim Menges. Yapı Fuarı – Turkeybuild Istanbul implemented an important initiative as part of its corporate social responsibility project in its 41st year. Under the project launched in cooperation with the Architecture for Everyone Association, waste materials remaining after stand production at the fair were recycled to produce seating units. The produced seating units and open classroom units were sent to Uşak Eşme Güllü Village Primary and Secondary School for reuse.

Yapı Fuarı – Turkeybuild Istanbul, organized by YEM Fuarcılık within ITE Turkey, which organizes leading fairs in Turkey's leading sectors, hosted nearly 1,000 participating companies from 17 countries this year across 11 halls and outdoor areas.

Yapı Fuarı – Turkeybuild Istanbul hosted special BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT PLATFORM events for its 41st year, addressing all issues in the sector from innovation to technology, architecture to design through 'BUILDING STAGE' and 'BUILDING ARENA' programmes along with 'BUILDING UNPLUGGED' workshop sessions and 'BUILDING MASTERCLASS' architectural masterclasses. This year's event programme received great appreciation from participants and visitors. Commenting on the 41st Yapı Fuarı – Turkeybuild Istanbul, ITE Group Regional Director Kemal Ülgen stated: "Just as in the past 40 years, we have conducted a very successful fair in our 41st year and hosted nearly 1,000 participating companies from 17 countries. Over five days, we addressed many sector issues with expert names. We brought together world-renowned architects and designers such as Alastair Parvin, Asif Khan and Achim Menges with our sector's followers, and together we benefited from their knowledge and experience. One of the biggest expectations at fairs is foreign participants and visitors. With the global strength of ITE Group behind us, we are extremely satisfied with the results achieved through both the Buyer Delegation Programmes we implemented with the Turkish Ministry of Economy and within our own organization. Through both buyer delegation programmes, we brought together more than 150 buyers from 50 countries with participants, creating new business cooperation opportunities."

We recycle waste materials for schools in need…

Speaking about the work carried out under the corporate social responsibility project in the 41st year of Yapı Fuarı – Turkeybuild Istanbul, Kemal Ülgen said: "Much waste material is generated in fair setup. We thought about how we could evaluate this in a meaningful way. At this point, our path intersected with the Architecture for Everyone Association (HİM). We saw that they carry out very valuable projects related to abandoned schools in Anatolia. Within the scope of the fair, 50 university students participated in the Building Unplugged workshop run by Architecture for Everyone and Assemble, producing items from waste materials. We sent the resulting seating units and open classroom units to Güllü Village Primary School in Uşak. There were also waste materials resulting from the fair. We will utilize these materials at Güllü Village Primary School during July. Our goal is to extend this project to other schools every year, meet the needs of schools in need, and in addition to contributing to education, help restore village schools to active use," he said. The countries with the highest participation at the fair this year include Poland, Germany, Italy, Russia, China, Taiwan and the Czech Republic.