No abstract

Safety by design has recently become one of the most significant research topics. It is believed that safety by design will provide profits to the construction sector by improving efficiency, reducing operating costs, reducing hazards and risks, and decreasing expensive accident prevention methods on the site. The aim of this study is to determine the awareness of the safety by design in the Turkish construction sector, and to raise awareness of the importance among the professional stakeholders in order to anticipate occupational accidents at the design stage, and implement the accident prevention applications early in the design process. Because the construction sector is hasty and fast, pre-construction executions have always been perceived as a waste of time, and the issue of prevention through design, which is the subject of this study, also takes place in the pre-construction stage. Due to the fact that the work related to the health and safety of the workers takes time and creates financial requirements, it is sometimes perceived as unnecessary by employers. Particularly, small-scale construction companies, make investments on safety only to protect themselves from legal sanctions. In order to identify the awareness of safety by design among the stakeholders in the sector, the data required for this study were collected through a questionnaire. The results of this study show that although the sector awareness on safety by design has emerged, there is still a huge gap in terms of implementation. It will be possible to fill this gap by increasing the awareness of the designers (architects, civil engineers) and increasing the legal supervision and penal sanctions.

The competitiveness of firms in the construction industry can be said to lie on technological developments. Owing to new technologies it is possible to reduce costs and respond to varying customer demands. Nanotechnology affects many sectors as a technology that contributes significantly to the development of the features of materials, and there are many applications in the construction industry as well as in many other areas. Research and development studies have shown that nanotechnology can improve the performance of traditional building materials such as concrete and steel. The construction industry is the major contributor to the environmental problems with the construction, operation and maintenance of buildings. The potential contribution to sustainability is to make the nanotechnology one of the most influential technologies in green buildings. Although nanotechnological materials are ready to be widely used in the construction industry, they have not had an important effect on the sector, yet. The purpose of this study is to better understand the adaptation of nanotechnology in the context of the Turkish Construction Industry, and to evaluate the current applications in nanotechnology. A survey was designed to capture the required data for this study.

Bu çalışma; 1. yazarın Balıkesir Üniversitesi Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü Mimarlık Anabilim dalı yüksek lisans programında hazırladığı 'Yapı sektöründe yapı bilgi modellemesinin adaptasyonu" başlıklı tezden üretilmiştir.

Today, the concept of sustainability is a very popular topic in the construction sector as in all areas of the industry. When the environmental impacts of the building life cycle are considered, the importance of this concept for this sector is seen more clearly. As in every education field, architectural education is also shaped according to the needs of the age. The differences between 2000s and today can be noticed when looking at the field of architecture that shifts in line with the needs of the age. Thus, necessary changes should be made in some disciplines such as architecture, interior architecture, civil engineering, city and regional planning and landscape architecture under the subject of sustainability. Architecture, which shapes the living spaces, has an enormous responsibility along with some other disciplines during the evolution of the occupational environmental awareness. It should be ensured with the university education that the undergraduate architecture students develop a mentality that pays attention to the concepts of ecology and sustainability, and enables skills to utilize renewable energy sources. This study aims to determine the awareness of students on sustainability. The data for this research is collected by conducting a survey at the Department of Architecture at the University of Balıkesir, and covers the senior students in the spring semester of 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 academic years. This study emphasizes the concept of sustainability, and aims to determine how the architect candidates who will be implementers in the future interact with the concept of sustainability during their higher education. One of the results of the study shows that students do not have much knowledge about sustainable architecture, but they tend to take related courses. Another result of the study is that students should be directed to projects that emphasize sustainability in architectural design courses.