The Turkish Steel Construction firm of Steel Yapi was founded over 50 years ago and is managed today by joint CEOs, Selami Gürel and Özgül Bulent. Gürel holds himself more responsible for planning and Gürel more for the commercial aspect.
The most noteworthy construction of the business until now is the Sir Norman Foster designed, multi-functional “Khan Shatyr” Events Centre in the Kazakh Capital of Astana. The international set-up of the business covers all aspects of Steel Construction, from the purchasing and processing, up to the installation. From its own figures, the business erects annually 300,000 m² of facade surfacing and processes 20,000 tonnes of steel. Annual turnover is in the order of 150m USD. Its core competence lies in its business of 800 employees, of whom over 100 are Engineers, principally in Facade Construction and in the creation of design-oriented structures.
For the Eurogare Railway Station project at Mons in Belgium, the business’s services include the relocation construction of the Hall , the pre-production of the Hall Segments at their factory, their delivery, their joining together as well as their installation, temporary fixation and final welding together. The Project Manager responsible for the Calatrava build at Metal Yapi, Uraz Polat, places emphasis upon the declaration that the relocation of the body of the Hall onto Teflon bearings for this project was in fact started by the previous contractor, Cordioli, and is now being continued by Metal Yapi, but this has long been established construction technique.
For the Railway Station project in Mons, Metal Yapi is not the sole active firm, yet its Engineers are involved in the planning of this build in all aspects of set-up, lifting and positioning of the large Hall components. For instance, they successfully championed, that the 3 x 3 cm large welding joints were sealed by arc welding most effectively using cored wire electrode. The steel used was partially sourced from the main contractor, but it was also purchased in part directly from Metal Yapi. The steel elements were previously delivered only by lorry.
Before its commissioning as Leading Metal Construction business for this project, the Turkish firm was already involved here as a solution partner and subcontractor for CTI Blaton. This internationally active firm is currently working on projects in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, France, Belgium and Romania.Robert Mehl, Aachen