Who will specify engineered timber? Lessons from a national census of Türkiye's building curricula

Engineered timber reaches a building only through a designer able to specify it. This study asks whether Türkiye's architecture and civil engineering programmes produce such designers, using the national population of departments, a re-coding of 193 full catalogues for nine material families, and the retained text of 220 compulsory courses. No building-discipline programme requires a timber course, while every wood-specialist programme does. The comparator shows this is neither crowding nor a judgement about timber: reinforced concrete, steel and soil mechanics are compulsory almost everywhere, and every other material, precast concrete included, is compulsory nowhere. Civil engineering course text contains no timber construction technology at all. The binding accreditation criteria name no structural material for either discipline, yet name timber throughout the forest industry entry. The lever exists and has never been aimed at the specifiers. The instrument is transferable to any country with published curricula.

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Publication Details

Journal
International Wood Products Journal
Published
2026-10-12
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/20426445261497015
Primary Topic
Engineering Education and Curriculum Development
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
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article

Who will specify engineered timber? Lessons from a national census of Türkiye's building curricula

Fazıl Akdağ, Fatma Betül Künyeli
International Wood Products Journal
Engineering Education and Curriculum Development
article

Who will specify engineered timber? Lessons from a national census of Türkiye's building curricula

Fazıl Akdağ, Fatma Betül Künyeli
article en

Abstract

Engineered timber reaches a building only through a designer able to specify it. This study asks whether Türkiye's architecture and civil engineering programmes produce such designers, using the national population of departments, a re-coding of 193 full catalogues for nine material families, and the retained text of 220 compulsory courses. No building-discipline programme requires a timber course, while every wood-specialist programme does. The comparator shows this is neither crowding nor a judgement about timber: reinforced concrete, steel and soil mechanics are compulsory almost everywhere, and every other material, precast concrete included, is compulsory nowhere. Civil engineering course text contains no timber construction technology at all. The binding accreditation criteria name no structural material for either discipline, yet name timber throughout the forest industry entry. The lever exists and has never been aimed at the specifiers. The instrument is transferable to any country with published curricula.

International Wood Products Journal
Erciyes University (TR)
Openalex Percentile: Top 13%
Engineering Education and Curriculum Development
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