Hydrock project UWE Engineering Building wins big at BCIA awards 2021

Hydrock’s integrated engineering design team enjoyed huge success at Wednesday night’s British Construction Industry Awards, as the University of the West of England’s (UWE) new Faculty of Engineering building won two awards, including being judged by the lead judges as overall Project of the Year.

Celebrating its 34th year, the prestigious British Construction Industry Awards brought together more than 600 of the most influential clients and peers in the built environment sector for a glittering evening of celebration, recognition and networking.

UWE’s new Engineering Faculty won its category for Social Infrastructure Project of the Year, and then triumphed with the final award of the night as Project of the Year. This is Hydrock’s third consecutive win at the BCIA awards, following in the footsteps of UK Hydrographic Office in 2019 and The Wave in 2020.

Having worked closely alongside our key project partners AHR Architects and BAM Construction, we were delighted to celebrate as a team the delivery of this state-of-the-art, highly collaborative new teaching space for our client, UWE.

The judges were impressed at how well this project delivered against a range of challenges. They were impressed that every available space had been designed as a potential learning space, encouraging collaboration and inspiring young people into a future in engineering.

They said: “We noted a great one-team approach – it was great to see how the client's vision was translated into a scheme delivered on time and to budget, and it was clear that the building was inspiring [UWE] to modernise the teaching of engineering. Secondly, we were impressed with how the project was delivered - strong use of digital tools and a real focus on driving down carbon use in construction and driving up the long-term sustainability of the structure.

“The standard of entry this year was very high indeed, but the judges awarded the prize to this scheme for all-round excellent performance. Congratulations, UWE!”

Speaking about the achievement, Graham Munday, Hydrock’s Marketing Director said: “We’re delighted to be celebrating this double win and a third consecutive BCIA win for a Hydrock project – it’s truly the result of a sterling effort from the whole project team. For UWE’s engineering building to see off stiff competition from some high quality schemes across the UK to win its category and be considered by the judges as ‘best of the best’ on the night is an outstanding achievement.”​​​​​​​

On the night, our flagship project in Wales, Llys Cadwyn, was ‘Highly Commended’ in the Commercial Property category. Exeter’s Deaf Academy, which collected three awards the night before at the Education Estates awards, was also short-listed in the Social Infrastructure category.