The annual student Structural Concrete competition held by The Concrete Centre in partnership with Laing O’Rourke has been won by a team from the University of Salford.
The 2020 competition challenge for teams of engineering students was to design a high-rise residential building in a waterside redevelopment area in a regional city centre. The building needed to provide two storeys of retail area with studio, one and two-bedroom apartments above, together with four two-storey penthouse apartments.
This year a virtual prize giving awards ceremony was held via a webinar on Thursday 20 August, where the winners were announced to all delegates. The online event celebrated the winner’s highlights and achievements along with their fellow entrants and the judges.
The 2020 competition attracted entries from across UK schools of engineering and three prizes were awarded. The first prize went to the University of Salford, the runners up were Imperial College, and the sustainability prize was won by Cardiff University.
Jenny Burridge, judge and head of structural engineering at The Concrete Centre, said: “This year’s project was a high rise residential building with a sloped façade providing an interesting challenge for the students. The judges were pleased by the level of design knowledge shown in the entries and the clarity of the calculations and drawings.”
Daniel Dickinson from the University of Salford students was praised by the judges for his submission which provided an in-depth consideration of stability and selection of shear walls which is critical in the structural engineering design of a tall building.
The runner-up prize was awarded to Ahmed Amr Ali Abdelrahman from Imperial College. The judges were impressed with the good, clear drawings showing design intent of the precast solution.
A sustainability prize is also awarded for the sustainability report element of the competition. For the 2020 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. |The winning Cardiff University entry was praised for having a very comprehensive sustainability statement and recommendations for this project.
The brief for the next competition “Structural Concrete 2021” was also launched at the event and is to design a civic centre comprising a library and council offices in a new garden town in the north west of England.
