2022 Structural Concrete Student Competition winners announced

18 Aug 2022

The Concrete Centre’s annual student Structural Concrete competition, in partnership with Laing O’Rourke, has been won by Sara Edgar, Naomi Stanton and Christopher Walsh from Queen’s University, Belfast. The 2022 competition challenge for teams of engineering students was to design a school building within an existing school development in the suburbs of a large UK city.

The brief was to undertake an initial design for the new building at Smeaton High School. The building included a classroom block and sports hall. The entrants had to respond as though they were the structural engineer responsible within the design team.

This year, The Concrete Centre held a virtual prize giving awards ceremony via webinar, which took place on Thursday 18 August 2022, 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 2022 competition attracted entries from across UK schools of engineering and three prizes were awarded.

• First prize - Sara Edgar, Naomi Stanton and Christopher Walsh from Queen’s University, Belfast
• Runners up - Waleed Anwar, Ozan Guler, Mathura Mahadevan and Saru Prajapati from University of East London
• Sustainability Award - Sara Edgar, Naomi Stanton and Christopher Walsh from Queen’s University, Belfast

Jenny Burridge, judge and Director of Structural Design at The Concrete Centre said  “This year’s project was three-storey school building with a single storey sports hall. The judges were impressed with the work that had gone into all the entries we had and with the structural understanding shown by the students.”

Sara Edgar, Naomi Stanton and Christopher Walsh from Queen’s University, Belfast impressed the judges with their very high standard submission that included two good options for the structure, covering both precast and in situ options. It was a high quality, clear submission with proper referencing.

Their option for the roof over the atrium in the classroom block was an innovative use of the “Flexiarch” system, normally used for small bridges.Clear thought was given to the choice of materials and how these would impact the performance and sustainability of the building.

Their submission also won the sustainability prize for their report on the sustainability aspects of the construction. It covered some of the key criteria including choice of material, embodied carbon calculation, waste management and life cycle management of the materials used for the project. The sustainability of the school building in use was also considered in terms of heating, building envelope and thermal mass.

Waleed Anwar, Ozan Guler, Mathura Mahadevan and Saru Prajapati from the University of East London came a very close runner-up with their submission which included very well-presented drawings giving clear information of the structural system chosen. The use of an architectural 3D model was effective in communicating the overall vision of the building and shows that care was taken for the overall visual aesthetic, something that would matter to the client and end users.

The brief for the next competition “Structural Concrete 2023” was also launched at the event and is to design a new office building with basement car parking in a city centre in the North West of England.