The UK-based Concrete Centre’s annual student competition, in partnership with Laing O’Rourke, has been won by a team from Imperial College London. The 2019 competition brief for teams of engineering students was to design a laboratory building which is to be built on a prominent site on the outskirts of a large UK town. The winners were announced at a prize-giving ceremony at The Concrete Centre’s autumn seminar held at the Royal College of Pathologists HQ on Thursday 12 September. The winners were also
The UK-based Concrete Centre’s annual student competition, in partnership with Laing O’Rourke, has been won by a team from Imperial College London. The 2019 competition brief for teams of engineering students was to design a laboratory building which is to be built on a prominent site on the outskirts of a large UK town.
The winners were announced at a prize-giving ceremony at The Concrete Centre’s autumn seminar held at the Royal College of Pathologists HQ on Thursday 12 September. The winners were also invited to a celebratory dinner hosted by the competition sponsor Laing O’Rourke with guests including the competition’s judging panel of Roger Hewitt, Arcadis (chairman of the judges); Sam Wong, Careys Construction; Eva Soto Perez, Laing O’Rourke and Jenny Burridge of The Concrete Centre.
The 2019 competition attracted entries from across UK schools of engineering and three prizes were awarded.
• First Prize: Imperial College London
• Runner-up: University of Surrey
• Sustainability Prize: University of East London
The competition brief was to design a laboratory building which is to be built on a prominent site on the outskirts of a large UK town. Jenny Burridge, judge and head of structural engineering at The Concrete Centre, said: “This year’s project had some interesting features including asking the students to investigate using high-performance concrete to create a feature staircase in the atrium.” The judges were pleased by the level of design knowledge shown in the entries and that several of the teams had investigated innovative concrete construction to incorporate into the project.”
Imperial College London students managed to impress the judges with a well thought out design solution with a good explanation of the structural strategy. Their submission also combined post-tensioning in the solution.
The runner-up prize was awarded to Tarun Mittal from the University of Surrey. Along with an interesting and well researched project, the judges were impressed with the hand written and drawn submission.
A sustainability prize is also awarded for the sustainability report element of the competition. For the 2019 competition, the entries needed to demonstrate how the building would have a long life and be economical to maintain and service as well as resilient to flooding and climate change impacts.
This prize was awarded to the University of East London. Their entry was praised for having a good commentary on why concrete is the resilient option and a clear sustainability report. The project had a good emphasis on building services which impressed the judges.
The brief for the next competition ‘Structural Concrete 2020’ was also launched at the event and is for a high-rise residential building in a waterside redevelopment area in a regional city centre. More information can be found at
