SAFETY STUDENTS LEAD THE WAY @apstalk

The Association for Project Safety celebrates top student designers

Top student designers in construction were recognised at the Association for Project Safety’ (APS) annual student designer awards (Wednesday 12 September 2018). Projects highlighting how best to manage risk demonstrate how future construction leaders will help make construction projects safer for workers and end users.

First prize: Faye, Sedgewick Northumbria University

This project promotes intergenerational living aimed at tackling the older people living in Newcastle upon Tyne, who are facing challenges of social segregation, loneliness and maintaining their independence. This mixed-use development minimises the potential risks to the well-being of a diverse community, whilst respecting the historic and social legacy of the Keelmen and the local context.

Second prize: Daniel Tomko, Birmingham City University

This was a complex brief consisting of three distinctive uses incorporating a sustainable research facility for urban farming, a visitors’ centre with lecture theatre located in a 20m cantilever plus exhibition gallery running in parallel, and an archive above the visitors’ centre counterbalancing the weight of the cantilever and establishing an architectural statement.

Third prize: Mohammed Shaed, Birmingham City University

His project, The Forest School of Hydroponics, is the development of a small secondary school and a hydroponics production space for the community to use for the making of natural medication. The strategy is integrated as part of the landscape within Druids Heath, Birmingham providing a semi-underground building with green roofs, roof lights and soft and hard landscape. The development comprises of classrooms, laboratories, hydroponics production and community spaces.

 

APS President Bobby Chakravarthy said:

“It is time to shout out for safety and celebrating student designers certainly signposts routes to safer construction. I am delighted to recognise the talents of the winners and entrants to this year’s annual Association for Project Safety’s (APS) student designer awards.
“Over recent times we have seen how the failure to build safety into the very fabric to design and construction health and safety risk management can lead to personal tragedies and even national disasters. So I am particularly pleased to see how tomorrow’s professionals can teach the old dogs some new tricks. Students currently studying any of the construction discipline can help challenge our established ways of working and make us see risk through new eyes. They bring lively thought and ideas to what is often thought of an industry that is set in its ways. The winners and entrants to this year’s Association for Project Safety’s annual student designer awards prove that the future of design and construction health and safety risk management is in good hands.”

The awards were presented at the Stoller Hall of Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester.

More information on the awards can be found here: https://www.aps.org.uk/awards-0