Concrete achievement for UEL civil engineers

A team of students from the University of East London came joint second in a prestigious national civil engineering competition that attracted entries from schools of engineering across the UK. The Structural Concrete Student Competition is an annual contest, organised by the trade association The Concrete Centre and sponsored by Laing O'Rourke, the UK’s largest construction contractor.

The team from UEL, Dinu Scaria, Raees Baig, Martins Ighodalo Ehikhamenor and Mohammed Shoaib Ali Sajath were praised for their “well-presented entry showing a good understanding of structural principles, with high-quality drawings.” A team from Queen’s University Belfast won the competition overall, with Imperial College London coming joint second with UEL.

The 2023 project brief was to create an initial structural design for a six-story office building with basement car parking in a city centre in the North West of England. The main challenges of the brief were the shape of the building and the void created by the underground car park. Entrants had to respond as if they were the structural engineers responsible for the design of the project.

One of UEL’s team, Martins Ighodalo Ehikhamenor, who worked on the entry’s structural drawings and 3D modelling said,

Our tutors' corrections were an inspiration for me to improve. I now have a better understanding of how to represent structural drawings in accordance with UK specifications, which will be very helpful for future construction projects.”

UEL has a proud history in the competition. Teams from the University came second last year, won a sustainability prize in 2019 and were overall winners in 2018 and 2016.

Ali Abbas, Associate Professor for the Department of Engineering and Construction, who helped the students said, “I am immensely proud of this achievement by our students, who have kept our distinguished track record on this prestigious UK-wide student competition. It’s very rewarding to see them flourish and an absolute honour to be part of their journey”.

Find out more about our courses in civil engineering.