Digital construction project of the year

WINNER: MIDLAND METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL – BALFOUR BEATTY

Balfour Beatty took over the delivery of the Midland Metropolitan University Hospital in 2019, after Carillion’s collapse. It implemented a digital strategy to support the project completion, commissioning and handover stages. There were circa 52,000 commissioning activities.

Balfour used a CDE to store and track commissioning notifications and the associated documentation. It also created a system to store and track the final handover documentation.

Ultimately, productivity was increased by 15%, and project costs reduced by 5%.

Digital consultancy of the year

WINNER: QUEENSWOOD

Queenswood helped minimise project delays on HS2 by improving engagement with local councils and communities affected by the mega-project’s construction.

Queenswood pulled together detailed works, logistics and programme information impacting the council areas and repackaged that information into a single, easily understood source of truth. The consultancy’s approach aided councils’ understanding of the works and demonstrated to them that the works were coordinated with community impacts in mind.

Queenswood’s work was embraced by the councils with key consents unlocked for HS2.

Digital rising star of the year

WINNER: BEN HARDIE, LAING O’ROURKE

Ben Hardie, digital engineer at Laing O’Rourke, joined the contractor straight from sixth form as part of the organisation’s school and college leaver programme. Since then, he has earned the nickname ‘the Swiss Army knife of digital engineering’, reflecting his versatility and largely self-taught expertise.

Ben is an evangelist for digital tools and technology in construction.

His ability as a mentor was recognised in his admission to Laing O’Rourke’s Digital Engineering buddy scheme.

Best application of technology

WINNER: ATKINSRÉALIS – VIRTUAL SITE ACCESS

AtkinsRéalis’s Virtual Site Access for the nuclear industry enables anyone to manage and visualise a physical site remotely thanks to the deployment of several technologies, including quadrupedal robotics, Microsoft HoloLens 2, Igloo Vision immersive spaces and cloud-based systems.

Between March 2023 and February 2024, the technology saved 20,000 hours of travel, an estimated £1.2m in costs, and nearly 300,000kg of CO2, while also substantially reducing personnel radiation exposure.

Best use of data on a project

WINNER: IDEA – KING’S COLLEGE LONDON VANTAGE MODEL)

iDEA has worked with King’s College London, exploring new digital technologies that could support the delivery of a long-term campus masterplan to improve and optimise the college’s complex estate in central London.

Using Vantage, iDEA developed a digital campus platform, built in the Unity game engine, that provides an interactive means of storytelling and data analysis. An open-source API allows data from time and spatial planning tools to connect with the college’s BMS.

Digital innovation in asset management

WINNER: ULSTER UNIVERSITY – VIRTUAL CAMPUS

Virtual Campus is a student-driven project, originating from undergraduate research. It uses a digital workflow to create immersive 3D virtual replicas of key spaces on all Ulster University campuses, allowing users to virtually explore and connect with their campus.

It supports the health and wellbeing of staff and students around space familiarisation and transition, with a focus on vulnerable students’ mental wellbeing and anxiety levels.

The project has had a positive impact, and is highly rated by the students.

Digital innovation in productivity

WINNER: GEOSPATIAL COMMISSION / ATKINSRÉALIS – THE NATIONAL UNDERGROUND ASSET REGISTER

The Geospatial Commission and AtkinsRéalis are building the National Underground Asset Register – an interactive digital map of underground pipes and cables that will improve safe digging and end accidental strikes.

An initial version of the register is available across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and includes data from energy, water and telecommunication companies, transport organisations and local authorities.

The register is expected to deliver £490m of economic growth annually through reduced accidental damage, increased efficiency, and reduced community disruption.

Digital contractor of the year

WINNER: MCLAUGHLIN & HARVEY

McLaughlin & Harvey has met the digital construction challenge by focusing on people, processes, and technology.

M&H has shifted towards managing all its projects digitally and has built up its in-house expertise, growing its digital team from a single manager to a ten-strong department.

The development of this in-house expertise has enabled M&H to assist its clients in specifying their requirements, and subsequently delivering and verifying those requirements using 19650-compliant processes and appropriate technology.

Digital collaboration of the year

WINNER: UNITED UTILITIES / MWH TREATMENT, STANTEC, J MURPHY & SONS – OSWESTRY WATER TREATMENT WORKS

The team at Oswestry Water Treatment Works faced a significant challenge to deliver a £145m capital investment project in 33 months while maintaining a live existing site with uninterrupted supply to United Utilities customers.

The team tackled this head-on by adopting a digital-first approach and fostering full collaboration across a network of more than 20 subcontractors, the client and suppliers. In addition, the project has also adopted a ‘one-team culture’ among all parties.

Digital construction champion of the year

WINNER: PAM BHANDAL

One well-known BIM professional described our champion as the glue that kept the UK BIM Alliance going in its formative stages and was instrumental in its outreach, significantly growing its audiences and engagement on LinkedIn and Twitter. Indeed, our champion was a founding team member of the Alliance.

Through their considerable networking skills, our champion helped bring the right people together across industry specialisms, and organised many of the BIM Regions and BIM4 events. Indeed, Alliance members told us there was little the Alliance did that didn’t have our champion’s fingerprints on.

Our champion was also one of the original core team members of Women in BIM; without her, this network, which supports women in digital construction-related roles, would not have achieved the success it has to date, one BIM professional told us.

Our champion is dedicated and passionate. They connect leaders, fostering collaboration; they build vibrant communities; and they have secured critical funding and resources to ensure essential industry initiatives thrived.

Noting that the definition of ‘champion’ is to “vigorously support or defend the cause of”, another digital construction guru said our champion “has been the ultimate supporter of digital construction”.

Finally, it has been said by a number of respected industry leaders that without our champion, for many BIM in the UK would not have happened!

Product innovation of the year

WINNER: ONE ENGAGE

ONE Engage is a building safety platform developed in response to the Building Safety Act. It connects residents, landlord safety teams, and fire and rescue services digitally.

Landlords use the system to manage information exchanges with residents and fire authorities.

The fire authorities use the interactive map to access critical building safety information.

And residents can connect with those in their community, understand better their building and legal responsibilities, and the performance of their landlord, helping them to feel safe.

Delivering sustainability with digital innovation

WINNER: SIR ROBERT MCALPINE – DIGITAL-LED MATERIAL PASSPORT DELIVERY ON 1 BROADGATE

Sir Robert McAlpine has adopted a materials passport process on British Land’s 1 Broadgate that prioritises material reuse and repurpose, while reducing waste and carbon emissions in construction.

The materials passports help to link the carbon data to the model.

The system is already producing results: during the demolition of the original 1 Broadgate building, 27% of the materials were reclaimed for reuse, either as part of the new structure or within the wider Broadgate campus.

Digital innovation in health, safety and wellbeing

WINNER: DISCOVERING SAFETY (HSE) – SENSORS AND SAFETY ZONES WITH 3D MODELLING

The Health and Safety Executive has worked with the construction industry, academia and tech providers to develop a library of standardised data and processes that can be incorporated into visualisation and modelling tools to mitigate safety risks in construction.

As an extension of this project, an ultimately successful trial pioneered the use of sensors that can be physically attached to people and plant, and digitally link them to a BIM model to create safety zones.