The Concrete Centre’s annual student Structural Concrete competition, in partnership with Laing O’Rourke, has been won by Ashley Andersen from the University of Surrey. The 2021 competition challenge for teams of engineering students was to design a civic centre comprising a library and council offices in a new garden town in the north west
A worrying statistic; it has been reported that aggregate reserves are being used up at a notably faster rate than permission is being granted for the development of new quarrying capacity – a warning by the Mineral Products Association (MPA) of a tip in the scales of supply and demand
BDC 319 : Aug 2024
The Concrete Centre’s annual student Structural Concrete competition, in partnership with Laing O’Rourke, has been won by Ashley Andersen from the University of Surrey. The 2021 competition challenge for teams of engineering students was to design a civic centre comprising a library and council offices in a new garden town in the north west of England. The client has requested bids from design-and-build contractors for the construction of the building and its maintenance over the next 30 years. One of these contractors has commissioned an initial design for the new building at Porchester New Town, from a firm of consulting engineers. Entrants must respond as though they are the structural engineer responsible within the consultant’s team. This year, The Concrete Centre held a virtual prize giving awards ceremony via webinar, which took place on Thursday 19 August 2021, 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 2021 competition attracted entries from across UK schools of engineering and three prizes were awarded. First prize – University of Surrey Runners up – Salford University Sustainability Award – Salford University Jenny Burridge, judge and head of structural engineering at The Concrete Centre said “This year’s project was a five-storey civic building comprising a lower ground floor library and four floors of offices. The judges were pleased by the level of design knowledge shown in the entries and the work that had been done to understand the requirements of the brief.” Ashley Andersen from the University of Surrey impressed the judges with his very high standard submission that included exciting ‘tree’ columns in the library which framed rooflights to allow more daylight into the space. Ashley’s drawings were clear and well presented. Daniel Dickinson from the University of Salford came a close runner-up with his submission which included long span post-tensioned beams. Daniel was also awarded the sustainability prize for his report, which included an embodied carbon calculation. This was Daniel’s second year in the competition, having won last year. The brief for the next competition “Structural Concrete 2022” was also launched at the event and is to design a school building within an existing school development in the suburbs of a large UK city. More information can be found at http://www.concretecentre.com/competition
A worrying statistic; it has been reported that aggregate reserves are being used up at a notably faster rate than permission is being granted for the development of new quarrying capacity – a warning by the Mineral Products Association (MPA) of a tip in the scales of supply and demand for key construction materials. The warning of the supply and demand situation was showcased in the MPA’s Annual Mineral Planning Survey, which covers the period up to the close of 2014, incorporating data submitted by the association’s members from around the UK. As the construction industry as a whole recovers, with increasing workloads and developments coming to the fore, so too has the demand for aggregates. Yet, whilst this would seem like a very positive result for key aggregate suppliers, dwindling reserves and the inability to develop further capacity quickly enough may prevent suppliers from truly taking advantage of the surge in demand. As such, the MPA has urged local authorities to reassess mineral plans and hasten the planning process for new capacity. Other key areas aside from aggregates in a similar situation include the supply of sand and gravel. Shockingly, it was actually reported that reserves are being used at a rate two times as high as the new capacity is being facilitated. And while crushed rock is a material being superficially restocked, it has been argued that this simply acts as a shroud over the lack of replenishment seen across other key construction materials. Yet, it has been argued that it isn’t a case of an actual lack in the availability of raw materials, but simply ineffectiveness in the arrangement of mineral plans. Nigel Jackson, Chief Executive of the MPA commented: “With over half of new permissions being for sites that have not yet been allocated in mineral plans, it is clear that the plan led system is not providing the certainty that it should.”
