State of Tunnel Formwork Technology in Today's Construction Industry: An Assessment

<p><em>Housing materials have evolved from natural, technology-driven solutions to the building materials we use now, including steel, lightweight concrete, glulam wood, and laminated glass. Demands from a growing world population, coupled with wars and natural disasters, have led to a need for increased mass housing production. In response, the construction industry has adopted advanced mass housing production methods. Tunnel formwork technology, imported from abroad in the 1990s, is particularly suited to mass housing projects in earthquake-prone areas. Despite certain limitations, it has been widely used in the construction of mass housing and dormitories. This study aims to introduce industrial formwork technologies and evaluate the current situation by demonstrating the application methods of tunnel formwork technologies and the design constraints they impose, using the Ataşehir Uydukent project as an example. In recent years, this technology has been transferred from Istanbul to other earthquake-prone regions of Turkey through TOKİ, and is used in areas where mass housing production is carried out.</em></p>