A significant achievement has been made by the Department of Civil Engineering at the Faculty of Architecture and Engineering of Kırşehir Ahi Evran University. The Ahi Engineers Team, which participated in the 2023 Teknofest Aerospace and Technology Festival, was among the finalists in the Environmental and Energy Technologies category in Istanbul. Their innovation, titled “Modular, Reinforced Earth, Structural Construction Panel Systems”, has been officially registered as a utility model by the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office. The project, supervised by Asst. Prof. Dr. Furkan Birdal from the Department of Civil Engineering, and conducted by our students Burak Alan and Kerem Yılmaz, has significantly contributed to strengthening our university’s research and innovation efforts in this field.

The project focuses on utilizing soil, a natural, biodegradable material, in a more effective and technologically viable manner in construction design, without imposing an environmental burden or generating waste. Within this scope, the team aimed to integrate the traditionally used “earthen architecture” commonly found in Anatolia with modern technology to design modular reinforced earth panel systems that are lightweight, highly energy-efficient, and environmentally sustainable. This innovation aims to mitigate the adverse environmental and energy-related impacts of reinforced concrete, thereby advancing the construction sector through the development of an eco-friendly, energy-efficient, and modular reinforced earth panel system. By combining this traditional building technique, inherited from the past, with contemporary technologies and scientific knowledge, Kırşehir Ahi Evran University presents an original, domestic approach to architectural design. The newly designed reinforced earth panel elements will enable the rapid production of practical, eco-conscious, and thermally efficient modular building systems.