TURKISH company Teknik Yapi Construction has employed dozens of cranes and hoists to help speed up and ease work on what is described as Istanbul’s largest housing project, which is now in the handover phase.

The Evora Istanbul, as it is called, is located on a 300-acre site in Tuzla, a suburb on the Anatolia side of Istanbul, and overlooks the Pendik Marina and the Tuzla dockyards, which are on the Sea of Marmara.

It consists of a total of 44 blocks, with the high-rise towers having erected using 11 Liebherr tower cranes leased by Teknik Yapi from between six and eight months from Liebherr’s Turkish distributor, Atilla Dural Mumessillik Insaat Turizm.

The Liebherr cranes are a combination of eight-tonne capacity high-top 132 EC-H 8 Litronic units, six-tonne 154 EC-H 6 Litronics, a 90 LD with a capacity of three tonnes, and a 42 KR.1 crawler crane with a maximum lift of four tonnes and maximum hook height of 28 m.

“We have our own fleet of Liebherr cranes, consisting of six units,” says Taner Ozcan, Teknik Yapi’s project manager at Evora. “However, we needed the extra cranes and because of the fast construction schedule, and the diversity of lift capacities and requirements, we decided on a rental agreement for the units to be used on this site.”

He continues: “Atilla Dural worked with us to ensure that we had the most appropriate crane specifications and deployment patterns to ensure this complex project was completed to schedule and that the rental periods were no longer than necessary.

“They also supplied all the materials hoists, thereby providing all the heavy lifting requirements, and so we have been able to work together and bring the project to fruition with great precision.”

The cranes were all delivered new from Liebherr in Germany, and all except the 42 KR.1 crawler unit are being used as external climbing cranes.

Teknik Yapi Construction also used a total of 32 external Alimak construction hoists to build the low- and medium-rise structures at the project, which is located on a 300-acre site on the Anatolia side of Istanbul. These include 26 construction hoists from Sweden’s lifting specialist Alimak Hek.

These hoists were mostly Alimak Scando 450 units supplied new from the manufacturer and were used under a rental agreement of between six and eight months also with Atilla Dural Mumessillik Insaat Turizm,  Alimak Hek’s Turkish distributor. The remaining six units are owned by Teknik Yapi and form part of the contractor’s own fleet.

Ozan points out that the project had a fast construction schedule, with many of the residential units going on sale and having been readied for early occupancy before the entire development was completed.

“We have been a long-time user of Alimak hoists, and on this project, with such a large number of structures, we decided on a rental agreement, working with Atilla Dural to ensure that the hoist specifications were appropriate for the production cycle,” he adds.

The Alimak Scando 450 is designed for materials and personnel, and can lift a maximum load of two tonnes to a height of 150 m. Four Hek TPM 1300 SD transport platforms, a mobile unit with an open-top platform large enough to take palletised and large dimension goods, and with a payload capacity of 1,800 kg, were also used on the site.

“The Alimak Scando 450 was considered the most appropriate model, given the fact that most of the structures were 11 or 15 storeys in height, and that the car has a travel speed of up to 54 m per minute,” says Ozcan.

Ozcan adds that as Turkey is located in an earthquake zone, the reinforced concrete structures, formwork and the underground infrastructure are designed and built in accordance with the Turkish earthquake specifications.

Designed by renowned Turkish architect Eren Yorulmazer, Evora Istanbul has been built on a hillside overlooking the sea and will eventually be home to more than 20,000 people. It comprises 4,300 residential units along with three shopping districts, and schools and kindergartens, swimming pools, a spa, playgrounds, a soccer pitch, and basketball and volleyball courts.

The development has a fast connection to Istanbul city centre via the E-5 highway and also the Marmaray mass transit system, and is about 10 minutes by car from Sabiha Gokcen Airport.

To maximise the views from the high-rise towers, many of the taller structures have been designed in an oval plan, and feature floor-to-ceiling windows. More than 80 per cent of the land area will remain as green space, and the overall effect is that of a garden city.

The project began in 2011, with the low- and medium-rise units completed late last year and the high-rise towers due for completion last month (July).