Project & Master Won the International Structural Awards

Founded in 1979 by Jay A. Pritzker and his wife Cindy, the award is funded by the Pritzker family and sponsored by the Hyatt Foundation. It is considered to be one of the world’s premier architecture prizes, and is often referred to as the Nobel Prize of architecture.
2018 March 7, architect Balkrishna Doshi from India won the 40th Pritzker prize.

So, what are the international structural awards? And which projects and person won the prize?

Since 1968, the Structural Awards pick the projects which are original, beautiful, sustainability, and valuable out of the infrastructures and buildings all over the world, and award them.

The big prize is founded by the Institution of Structural Engineers, and adjust the awards in 2017, there are 12 principal categories and 3 special classes after the adjustment. According to the structural features, not the structural types, the 12 main awards cover all the aspects of structural constructions, they are: the Award for Tall or Slender Structures, the Award for Long Span Structures, the Award for Vehicle Bridges, the Award for Pedestrian Bridges, the Award for Small Projects( of under £1 million), the Award for Small Projects(of between £1-3 million), the Award for Structures in Extreme Conditions, the Award for Structural Heritage, the Award for Structural Transformation, the Award for Construction Innovation, the Award for Construction Integration, the Award for Structural Artistry. And the 3 Special Awards are the Award for Sustainability, the Award for Outstanding Value, the Supreme Award for Structural Engineering Excellence.

For over 50 years, including Sydney Opera House, the Pompidou Center of France and the Severn Bridge of British has won the Awards. And the first Supreme Award for Structural Engineering Excellence since 2003, the winner as follows:

The location of the project: Brighton, UK

Building design: Marks Barfield Architects

Structural design: Jacobs

The source of the photo: British Airways

▲British Airways i360 won the 2017 Supreme Award for Structural Engineering Excellence

British Airways i360 is the highest movable view tower in the world, this view tower consists of one 162 meters high steel tower and one doughnut-shaped glass view chamber, it can lift 200 people up to 138 meter high, the depth-width ratio of this tower is 40:1. The rounded viewing deck is joint together by 24 part glass which is made by hand, the glass is all adopted hollow double glass. As the tempered glass cannot be cut, so each glass must fit the steel frame precisely, and glue together curly.

I360 is covered by punching aluminum sheet, which is a great help to reduce the wind force. It is too difficult to adjust the frequency because it’s too long and thin, also the soft structure. There are 78 water tanks which change the distribution and position of the structure mass, altered the natural vibration frequency, react on the wind loading rating.

▲British Airways i360  24 sector handmade glass

The other innovation is the building method of the tower. It is formed of 17 tanks, 50- 100 tons each, connect by the jack frame, all the construction works safely on the ground.

▲British Airways i360, building method

▲British Airways i360, the size of the tower tank

Location of the project: Surrey, Canada

Building design: HCMA Architecture + Design

Structural design: Fast + Epp

▲Grandview Heights Aquatic Centre won the 2016 Supreme Award for Structural Engineering Excellence

Grandview Heights Aquatic Centre located in Surrey won the Award because of its unique rolling roof. The roof used catenary wood structure, below the roof is a 55-meter span pool, the thickness of the structure is the only 300mm, the structure hangs on the post-tensioning method prestressing concrete support. The match of the blue and wood looks comfortable.

The structural engineers chose wood as the replacement of the steel, which is high cost-effectiveness, high structural effectiveness, and beautiful, balance the building style and the usage.

▲Grandview Heights Aquatic Centre, Catenary Wood Structure Roof

▲Grandview Heights Aquatic Centre, Prestressing Concrete Support

Location of project: Kallang, Singapore

Building design: Arup Associates; DP Architects

Structural design: Arup

Pic source: Arup Associates

▲Singapore Sports Hub  won the 2015 Supreme Award for Structural Engineering Excellence

Singapore Sports Hub is the biggest long-span dome building in the world, the span as large as 310 meters. The roof of the hub adopts ultrathin dome structure, and movable. The engineers pick a material called ETFE which is a kind of pretty tough fluoroplastics as the main material, the tensile strength can up to 50Mpa.

The sliding dome structure roof divided into two parts, support by metal rigging, fixed on the 9000 tons steel main structure, sliding along the steel structure railways which are fixed on the main structure, only takes 20 minutes from open to close.

▲Singapore Sports Hub  The Main Steel Structure

▲Singapore Sports Hub  The sliding Roof

The Singapore Sports Hub can transform to ground track field. The seats are designed to install on the hydraumatic elevator, when it needs to transform, part of the seats will descend into the ground, and the front seats backward, then the tracks show. The seats and the ground shows and hides for a different purpose.

▲Singapore Sports Hub, Sports Hub transform to the Ground Track Field

Structure Design: Eckersley O’Callaghan

Structure Design: Traffic Planning & Designing institution  of Jiangsu

Structure Design: Flint & Neill Limited

Structure Design: Expedition Engineering Ltd

Structure Design: Arup

Structure Design: Expedition Engineering

Structure Design: Arup

Structure Design: Buro Happold & Engineers Haskins Robinson Waters

Structure Design: Dar Al-Handasah Consultants

No one wins the 2005th Award

Structure Design: Dewhurst Macfarlane & Partners with Goldreich Engineering PC

Structure Design: Gifford

The Structural Awards of 2018 will present at 16th, November, and the closing date for entries is 16th, April.

The Gold Medal of IStructE issued by Institution of Structural Engineers has commended the person who made extraordinary contributions to the structure construction progress.

The Award issued to Professor Henry Adams in 1922 for the first time, the other Award winners are thin shell concrete master Felix Candela, the founder of Arup Company Ove Arup, bridge master of Russia Oleg Kerensky, English Structural Engineer Edmund Happold, and many others. The Awards winner these years as follows:

The CEO and partner of Arup International Develop Group Jo Da Silva have won the 2017^th Gold Medal of IStructE, to cite her performance in structural constructions, humanism and build the tenacity city. After the tsunami in India Ocean in 2005, she coordinates with more than 100 humanism agencies, built 60,000 shelters in Sri Lanka in 6 months. Jo Da Silva said:” As a Structural Engineer, we should consider more about the social results of our projects, not only the production.”

▲ Jo in Aceh, The reestablishment after the tsunami, Picture Source: Arup

▲ Shelters in Sri Lanka, Picture Source: Arup

Remarkable industry leader, high-rise buildings and long-span structural expert Robert Halvorson won the 2016 Golden Metal of IStructE. Robert Halvorson started his own business at SOM, became the youngest partner at his 31. In 1996, he founded Halvorson and Partners, it grows up to a company rapidly which have nearly 70 professionals. In 2015, it combined with WSP.

In the past 40 years, Halvorson participatory design several super high-rise buildings include Hanjing Central Building of China, Torre Caja Madrid.

▲ Hanjing Central Building, Image Source: Morphosis

▲ Torre Caja, Madrid, Image Source: Foster + Partners

CEO of SBP Project Design & Consulting Company and Structural Project Professor of Berlin Industrial University in Germany Mike Schlaich won the 2015^th Golden Metal of IStructE. Mike is a specialist of light structure, he awarded because of the achievements in light structure field and elegant use of concrete, and his famous pedestrian bridge project.

Mike said that when he won the Award:” It’s my honor to win the Golden Award. Think of the previous winners of this Awards makes me flush. Many of them are my heroes. My father JöRG Schlaich has won the Award 25 years ago, it’s a wonderful experience that can be one of the winners, just like my father and the other winners.”

▲Wolfsburg Pringle, Germany

▲Ting Kau Bridge, Hongkong

▲Christian Garden, Germany

IASS, International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures, founded in 1959, is one of the most influential associations in the civil engineering field, the Association focuses on light structure system( like membrane structure, shell structure, frame structure, etc.), its headquarters in Madrid, Spain.

Eduardo Torroja (1899～1961), is a poet of concrete, he is the founder and the first chairman. Torroja is good at design and analyses concrete shell, cantilever structure, spatial grid shell, and prestressed concrete, during the civil war of Spain, he created a lot of beautiful works at lowest cost & fewest materials.

▲Eduardo Torroja and his works

The Lifetime Achievements Award of IASS name after Eduardo Torroja, award the structural engineers who did extraordinary contributions in spatial structure constructions, it is awarded every two years.

International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering, IABSE for short, founded in 1929, now there are 4200 members, comes from more than 100 countries and regions, it’s the international association which has the most member countries. The Association aimed at promoting the international academic communications and make progress of structural engineering technology of international industry and society.

The Outstanding Structure Award prize the buildings which are innovative, beautiful and excited, also the sustainability and respect to the environment should take into consideration when prize. The Awarded projects over years as follows:

▲Phoenix International Centre, 2017th IABSE

The appearance design of the Phoenix International Centre comes from Mobius Band, match with the Phoenix Satellite television station mark, so it’s also called “Phoenix Nest”. The main structure of this project is reinforced concrete, the shell structure is spatial steel structure system, glass curtain wall clings to the steel structure. From the view of art, the design of Beijing Phoenix Center is the best originality and the gorgeous landmark of all.

▲Shanghai Central Building, 2016th Outstanding Structure Award

Shanghai Central Building located in the core area of Lujiazui finance and trade zone of Pudong, Shanghai, the height of the main building is 632m, 121 stories on the ground, and 5 stories underground. This project use giant frame semi-girder core tube structure system, set six two-story-high semi-girder trusses at 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th,7th, the 8th section along the height, each section have two-story-high box-band truss.

▲East Section of San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, 2015th Outstanding Structure Award of IABSE

The San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge New East Span is the largest span solo tower self-anchorage suspension bridge in the world, its span is 624m, and its the known widest bridge in the world which width is 79m. This project integrated a lot of technology innovations, include set shear beam on the 160m high SAS main tower, which can absorb the energy of earthquake; the 1387m long main wire is anchored on the upper structure of the bridge not on the ground at both ends of the bridge; batter pile technology, and some other technologies.

International Award of Merit in Structural Engineering founded in 1976, to cite people who did tremendous contributions in structure construction field. Among the awards of past years, the 2016, 1999, 1988 Award is not be taken, and there are two winner in 1982, Fazlur Khan, who raised and complete frame-barrel structure system, frame- core tube structure system, truss-barrel structure system, beam tube structure system.

Original here.