Istanbul building structural risk assessments

An inspection report from the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB) has identified 20,000 buildings in Istanbul as being at ‘high’ or ‘very high’ risk. Between July 2020 and July 2026, authorities inspected 40,000 buildings, finding that the most vulnerable districts include Avcılar and Zeytinburnu. Most of these at-risk structures were built before 1999. The Environment and Urbanization Minister noted that while over one million units have been completed through urban transformation efforts since 2012, Istanbul represents approximately one-third of Turkey’s total urgent urban transformation needs.

In a separate development, artificial intelligence-supported structural analysis was used to evaluate a seven-story building in Maltepe that had collapsed. Using software that analyzes facade photography, researchers identified numerous geometric deficiencies in the structure. The AI assigned the building a score of 0.5 out of 3 and classified it with a ‘95% probability as a very high-risk structure’ based on data taken nine months prior to the collapse.