The Structural Awards have celebrated the very best in structural engineering worldwide since 1968.
Past winners have included iconic structures such as Heathrow Terminal 5 and the Sydney Opera House. Some recent winners are showcased below.
This school gymnasium in Bali is an ambitious demonstration of the structural use of bamboo, utilising the material’s unique combination of strength and flexibility.
A transformative retrofit project providing modern workspace and affordable housing on the fringe of the City of London.
A project to repair and strengthen a town hall following devastating earthquakes. Significant portions of the structure were upgraded, repaired and restored. Other areas underwent a complete rebuild. High-end analysis minimised the strengthening work required for the superstructure. On completion, the town hall achieved a 100% New Building Standard rating.
A movable bridge built across Copenhagen harbour. The project required close cooperation between all parties due to the complex nature of the structure.
Please note: due to COVID-19 restrictions the Structural Awards were not held in 2020, although a gallery of project entries was published online in Autumn 2020. These entries were subsequently considered for shortlisting and an award in 2021.
The cable-net roof structure is a key feature of this stadium redevelopment project.
The bridge crosses the Tamina canyon 200m above the gorge. The arch and the superstructure create a continuous prestressed girder mainly forming the structural system.
British Airways i360 is the world's tallest moving observation tower. It carries 200 passengers at a time in a circular glass viewing pod, which rises slowly from beach level to a height of 138m. The tower is 162m high and only 3.9m in diameter (awarded the Guinness Record for the "world's most slender tower"). The tower was delivered by barge directly to the beach and erected by a novel "top down" method without the use of cranes. It features purpose-designed perforated cladding to minimise vortex shedding, and sloshing liquid dampers to limit wind-induced dynamic movements.
Grandview Heights Aquatic Centre was constructed to meet the needs of a diverse population in one of Canada’s fastest growing cities. The Centre has already surpassed anticipated visitor numbers. The roof is a unique and slender double, long-span timber catenary over the Olympic-sized pool, suspended between post-tensioned concrete buttresses. The engineers chose wood as a cost-effective, structurally-efficient and aesthetically-pleasing alternative to steel, cleverly balancing form and function.
This fine 19th century house was in need of a thorough overhaul. Significant structural problems included the eight metre span of the first floor joists, the sag in the gallery round the octagonal hall, and partial failure of a large timber truss. Mann Williams devised an ingenious method of strengthening the first floor by inserting trussed noggins between the joists. The gallery was pushed gently up to its original level and strengthened to keep it there. The truss was repaired by the addition of some small steel plates. All this work was carried out without damaging fragile wall coverings.
The Singapore Sports Hub is a key project in Singapore’s urban redevelopment and sports facilities masterplan, which promotes a more sustainable, healthy and active society. The Hub provides a unique ecosystem of sporting, retail and leisure spaces, including the new National Stadium - a highly adaptable, state-of-the-art, 55,000 seat sports venue featuring a retractable roof and movable seating. The Hub is the largest free-span dome structure in the world, and the stadium sets new benchmarks in efficiency of design and material usage – the roof uses a third of weight of steel normally used in a span of this size.
This latest iteration of structural glass design provides the purest form possible within the limits of current material fabrication. Clear glazed single panel walls with no connections to distract the eye, 10m long by 3m high on four sides, provide an efficient structural form capable of resisting seismic loads, while providing total transparency and architectural purity. The lightweight ultra-thin roof made of CFRP panels (carbon fibre reinforced plastic) seamlessly joined on site, provides a completely smooth uniform soffit while also improving the seismic performance of the whole structure. In such a minimalist project the detailing required particular attention, the result being a total absence of fixings, with the five panels being held together by structural silicone.