2017 Structural Awards shortlist announced

The Institution of Structural Engineers revealed its anticipated shortlist for the 2017 Structural Awards, which are regarded as the most prestigious award competition in the industry. Now in its 50th year, the competition distinguishes the achievements and valuable innovations of structural engineers worldwide, as well as the crucial roles they play in creating design solutions in the built environment.

As always, competition continues to grow every year. For 2017, 43 entries out of 119 projects were shortlisted across 13 categories. Winners will be announced during an awards ceremony at The Brewery in London on Friday, November 17.

Check out some of the shortlisted projects below.

Adele 25 Stage
Structural Designer: OPS Structures
Architect: Star Events Ltd.

Project summary: “The innovative new stage concept for singer Adele's “25” album tour was created in response to a demanding and specific design brief. An efficient and elegant structural solution was developed with sustainable legacy use at its heart. Working closely with client, Star Events, OPS designed several bespoke features for the new stage that enabled the structure to reach beyond previous bounds of stadium stage touring ‘in-the-round’. The design response focused on minimizing working at height, creating unobstructed views by negating traditional bracing, and facilitating containerised transportation.”

Amesbury School Visual Arts Building
Structural Designer: Webb Yates Engineers
Architect: tp bennett

“This striking single-story timber-framed building provides a multifunctional space for the school’s expanded arts curriculum. The superstructure is formed of a series of timber portal frames with a timber grillage roof and cladding. The double height space is overlooked by a mezzanine level constructed from timber studs and joist, and is accessible via a plywood timber stair which cantilevers dramatically around the walls of the kiln room. The concrete pad foundations are located away from the tree root protection areas and the superstructure wraps around the retained trees.”

Apple Union Square
Structural Designer: Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc. and Foster + Partners
Architect: Foster + Partners

“Located on San Francisco’s Union Square, the new Apple store involved the addition of a new superstructure over a functioning basement ballroom and corridors. The project consists of three volumes: the store, the bar building, and the plaza. The store connects to Union Square on one side, to the plaza on the other and contains an 11m cantilevering mezzanine floor within the 13.5m high main space. The bar building beside the store transfers over the entrance ramp and loading dock of the neighbouring hotel. This project illustrates how the structural, environmental, and architectural visions have come together to form a holistic design.”

Armadillo Vault
Structural Designer: Block Research Group and ODB Engineering
Architect: Block Research Group

“Exhibited at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, the Armadillo Vault is a doubly curved, unreinforced, cut-stone funicular vault, constructed from 399 limestone blocks. The thickness of stone varies from 8-12 cm at the supports to 5 cm at its peak. With a height of 4.4 m and spans of over 15 m, the structure has a span-to-thickness ratio less than half of that of an eggshell. Modern methods of computational form finding, structural analysis and digital fabrication were all interwoven to create a compression-only masonry structure inspired by traditional masonry craftsmanship and analysis methods.”

Bahá’í Temple of South America
Structural Designer: Simpson Gumpertz & Heger | Patricio Bertholet M. | Halcrow | Josef Gartner GmbH
Architect: Hariri Pontarini Architects

“Set on a hillside against the Andes Mountains, the Bahá’í Temple of South America welcomes worshipers from all directions through its nine entrances. The temple – which lets in light during the day and appears to glow in the evening – is comprised of nine wing-shaped, translucent petals of free-formed tubular steel space trusses, clad with cast glass on the exterior and marble on the interior. Constructed in a high-seismic zone with unique materials and structural systems, the temple's structural design employed performance-based design methods, extensive materials and structural testing, and seismic base isolation.”

British Airways i360 at Brighton
Structural Designer: Jacob
Architect: Marks Barfield Architects

“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 (holding 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.”

15 Clerkenwell Close
Structural Designer: Webb Yates Engineers
Architect: Amin Taha Architects

“15 Clerkenwell Close is a six storey (plus basement) mixed use building consisting of reinforced concrete flat slabs and a stability core. The slabs are supported around the perimeter by what appears at first glance as a traditional concrete/steel frame clad in stone. In fact it is a much simpler yet eye-catching system of solid stone load-bearing columns and lintels. A closer inspection reveals ammonoids, drilled wedge holes and saw grooves providing the clues to the true structural form.”

The Design Museum
Structural Designer: Arup
Architect: (Interior design and fit-out): John Pawson Limited
Architects (Shell & Core): OMA, West 8: Landscape Architects

“Arup provided a radical engineering solution to enable the successful re-invigoration of the Grade II* Listed Commonwealth Institute exhibition building, creating a new home for the Design Museum. The sophisticated solution involved strengthening and then retaining the building’s 2000 tonne (55m x 55m) roof and primary structure by temporarily suspending it 20m above ground, supported entirely by temporary works. This enabled the replacement of the existing façade and internal structure and the creation of a significant new basement covering the entire building plan. The building’s amazing transformation has continued to entice and delight visitors since opening in November 2016.”

Rejuvenation of the heritage Makatote rail viaduct
Structural Designer: Opus International Consultants
Architect: Heritage New Zealand

”Makatote rail viaduct is located in the North Island of New Zealand. It is one of the tallest railway viaducts in the country and holds significant heritage value for its elegance and the technology used at the time of construction (circa 1908). The viaduct began to suffer from corrosion, which subsequently led to section losses of steel elements. With an additional desire to upgrade the viaduct to the future load requirements of KiwiRail, the viaduct was refurbished and strengthened to extend its life for another 50 years.”

Oriam, Scotland's Sports Performance Centre
Structural Designer: Engenuiti and J&D Pierce
Architect: Reiach and Hall Architects

“Scotland’s new sports performance centre provides high quality facilities for a number of national sports bodies, including the Scottish Football Association and Scottish Rugby Union. The project comprises a full size indoor 3G synthetic pitch for football and rugby, with spectator seating for 500 people, a nine-court sports hall, a 100 station fitness suite, as well as a high performance wing that includes areas for hydrotherapy, strength and conditioning, rehabilitation, offices and a classroom.”

National Taichung Theatre
Structural Designer: Arup
Architect: Toyo Ito & Associates

“The Taichung National Theater is one of the most structural ambitious spaces constructed in recent decades. The main structure, a free-form, doubly curved, reinforced concrete shell, is a single continuous surface. It is an innovative combination of a sophisticated construction technology and local knowledge and craftsmanship. Taiwan has the highest seismic loads, and the engineering team used advanced analysis and optimization processes to deliver a robust structural design and a highly optimized structure to keep the project on budget.”

The Pump House
Structural Designer: Webb Yates Engineers
Architect: Fabric Space

“The structure of this mezzanine in a Victorian pump house building is entirely formed with 1.2m x 0.7m cast iron plates that interlock to form both the floor and balustrade. The pieces are sand cast using ductile iron with the pattern modeled in Rhino and CNC cut from timber, due to the repetition cast iron was an efficient and cost effective solution. The form represents the flow of load and stress through the pieces and is optimized for weight and strength while maintaining a very thin depth.”

Tate Modern
Structural Designer: Ramboll
Architect: Herzog & de Meuron

“The Tate Modern Switch House forms the second and final construction phase of the Tate Modern gallery. It is a unique building that has pushed the boundaries of modern design and engineering. Designed by Herzog and de Meuron Architects and engineered by Ramboll, it provides extraordinary spaces for Tate to present an increasingly international view of modern and contemporary art from around the world. The building successfully integrates display, learning and social functions, strengthening links between the gallery and its locality.”

The Crow's Nest
Structural Designer: Eckersley O'Callaghan
Architect: AR Design Studio

“Eckersley O’Callaghan engineered a bold yet pragmatic solution for a new holiday home on the Jurassic Coast clifftops of Ware, near Lyme Regis, on the south coast of Dorset. Nestled at the base of a slope, the site is within an active landslip zone and the original building had experienced irreparable damage through repeated, severe ground movements. The new solution allows for the building to be re-levelled in situ through a series of specific jacking points below the ground floor.”

(cover image) Apple Kunming Pavilion
Structural Designer: Eckersley O'Callaghan
Architect: Integrated Design Associates Inc.

“The glass pavilion is located in Shuncheng Mall plaza in Yunnan province of People’s Republic China. With 24 doors, its main purpose is to form an open entrance so that people can enter the store from all the sides of the plaza. A glass stair then leads underground to the showroom. A reinforced concrete slab provides support to the pavilion's structural system . A Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) roof with diameter 20.9m is supported by the glass columns and in turn it holds up an acrylic skylight.”

Find the full shortlist here.