Load bearing timber-glass composites: New opportunities for Turkey

Nowadays, timber with its natural appearance and glass with its transparent characteristics provide new opportunities for architects and engineers in construction as load-bearing systems. The main aim of presented research is to introduce timber-glass composite structural elements as new products to the Turkish market. A questionnaire method has been evaluated with the timber industries with the aim to gather market insight into the production of timber-glass components in order to query the knowledge of the timber industries about the suitability of timber-glass composite as a structural element. In line with this research, potential architectural design applications called pilot projects are presented by using timber-glass composites as load bearing elements. The pilot projects throughout will provide insights into the practicality and applicability of the developed composite systems in creating different design and application solutions. According to the respondents of the questionnaire, the timber industries in Turkey indicated that load-bearing capacity of timber-glass composite structural elements can be advantageous and the new structural element will be probably able to compete with other alternative structural elements in Turkey.