Barrett Mahoney Consulting Engineers for College Road, Croydon, London.  With an innovative structure, supported by research at design and construction stages, the winning project in this category has advanced offsite fabrication and shown how modular construction can be used to deliver high rise buildings. Comprising a pair of interconnected towers of 50 and 35 stories constructed from 1,725 modules manufactured offsite, the winning project is College Road, Croydon.

A scheme of 814 residences, 2,300 m2 commercial and 250m2 education space in 13 blocks from four to 30 storeys. Six blocks are precast concrete, including the 30 storey building, the tallest fully precast building in the UK. The consultant also undertook the design of the precast concrete sandwich panel system. The works included the restoration of a Grade II listed Dry Dock along with River Wall improvement works. A corner of the 30 storey tower is setback at ground level to allow access to the river wall. This setback was accommodated with a tapered column supporting 27 storeys above.

Project comprises 5km of 1.2m pipeline connecting a dam within an existing power station to a treatment plant and includes a significant river crossing. The routing of the pipe between the St. Paul’s River and an existing community required an Environmental & Social Audit along with a Resettlement Plan. Cloud based monitoring was used via handheld tablets with daily drone flights to provide information to a Dublin HQ. The project is noteworthy for its remoteness especially so during the Covid pandemic with closed flights. The decision of team leaders to remain on site during the pandemic is particularly laudable.