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NSC 5
April 18
Happy Birthday, SSDA
The Structural Steel Design Awards (SSDA) is 50 years old this year and in this issue of NSC we start a new series
to mark that achievement with a look at some of the project highlights of the Award’s first ten years. Articles on
the following decades will be carried over our next four issues.
A look at the first ten years of winners quickly reveals that the ambition to make the SSDA among the most
prestigious in construction was there from the beginning.
Engineering excellence, innovation, speed of construction and economy are among the features common
to all of the projects, which are still efficiently providing infrastructure and accommodation services 50 years
on, such as the 25-storey Winterton House in Tower Hamlets, London, an iconic structure locally and one of the
tallest buildings in the Borough. Heathrow’s Terminal 1 was an inaugural year winner, and all major UK airport
terminal buildings since then, as well as other key airport structures like Gatwick’s Air Bridge, have featured
steel.
Four of the inaugural year’s eight awards went to bridges, such as the Tinsley Viaduct over the M1, and
a pedestrian bridge in a shopping centre. Bridges have featured strongly in the Awards ever since, often
becoming tourist attractions in their own right. The St Katherine-by-the-Tower Inner Lifting Bridge became a
tourist draw from its inception in 1974. We can hopefully look forward to seeing steel bridges perform strongly
in construction of HS2 in years to come.
From those early days of the Awards we have seen inspiring examples of leading engineering and
architectural design excellence, as well as the world-class contribution from steelwork contractors. In many
cases we could point to examples of innovation that the construction industry generally is still catching up on.
Offsite construction for example is now attracting champions from all quarters, but it has always been a feature
of steel construction, and a great example can be seen in the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, which hugely
impressed the judges who said it was an extreme example of a flexible shed.
This 133m-long structure - architect Norman Foster’s first public building - incorporated exhibition and
teaching spaces, restaurants and offices, fabricated to a tight programme and tight tolerances, and erected
over only 18 weeks. The Centre has its own celebrations this year to mark 40 years of operation and is holding a
major exhibition called Superstructures that highlights the use of new technology, lightweight structures and
innovative engineering techniques and solutions. Construction of this SSDA award winner itself will, fittingly,
feature in the exhibition, as will much of the quality in construction that has become familiar to SSDA judges
over the years.
A full list and description of all SSDA winners can be found at: https://www.steelconstruction.info/
SSDA_2018_–_50th_Anniversary_Year
Nick Barrett - Editor
BARRETT
STEEL LIMITED
Headline sponsors:
Gold sponsors: AJN Steelstock Ltd | Ficep UK Ltd | Kingspan Limited |
National Tube Stockholders and Cleveland Steel & Tubes |
Peddinghaus Corporation | voestalpine Metsec plc | Wedge Group Galvanizing Ltd
Silver sponsors: Hadley Group | Jack Tighe Ltd | Tata Steel | Trimble Solutions (UK) Ltd
Bronze sponsors: Barnshaw Section Benders Limited | Hempel | Joseph Ash Galvanizing | Jotun Paints |
Kaltenbach Limited | Kloeckner Metals UK | Sherwin-Williams | Tension Control Bolts Ltd |
Voortman Steel Machinery
For further information about steel construction and Steel for Life please visit
www.steelconstruction.info or www.steelforlife.org
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