Tekla Global Awards 2020 – We Need Your Votes!

The project Water Street Bridge in Canary Wharf has been showered in awards and accolades over the past few years, and now its fourth major award is within grasp, and we need your help!

The project has been automatically entered into the biannual “Tekla Global BIM awards 2020” having won the UK Tekla BIM Award in 2019. In the Infrastructure category, Water Street Bridge is competing with 18 projects from across the world, as the UK representative of BIM excellence.

What makes Water Street Bridge such ground-breaking project worthy of Tekla Global award?

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL1nhSvfnu4

The Water Street bridge is a road and pedestrian link between Montgomery Square within the existing Canary Wharf estate and the new Wood Wharf development, but this is no ordinary bridge. The Project is a bespoke semi-submerged, single-leaf bascule bridge, meaning it required the construction of two semi-submerged abutments and a marine causeway. The most technically challenging abutment on the east side was constructed above water level and lowered 4-5 meters below the dock level. Temporary works were designed and delivered by Kilnbridge.

The project required the combined expertise of our Design and Engineering Hub, Civil Engineering, Concrete Cutting, Fabrication and Fire protection business units. Our efforts were guided by the application of our advanced BIM capabilities to accomplish this major feat of engineering.

The Project has been recognised over the last few years by;

• WINNER: British Construction Industry Temporary Works Initiative of the Year (Civil Engineering) Award 2018
• WINNER: Infrastructure UK Tekla Award Winner 2019
• WINNER: Project of the Year by a Specialist Contractor (Subcontract from £3m to £5m) at the 2019 Construction News Specialist Awards.
• Commendation for the CONSTRUCT Project of the Year (over £2.5million) Award 2018
• Shortlisting for Construction News Project of the Year by a Specialist Contractor (£3million to £5million) Award, with the latter yet to be awarded

The use of BIM and Tekla

Given the hybrid nature of the structure, combining insitu concrete, precast concrete, finished concrete and temporary works elements, co-ordination and development of the solution within the limited time frame was aided immeasurably by the use of BIM and notably Tekla. An animation of the construction programme based on the model was produced to provide a visual tool for the operatives during the inductions and site briefings to ensure that all were aware of the sequence of works and key deliverables.

The production capabilities and the ease of change control allowed within Tekla was exemplified when only two weeks prior to a key element of the works being constructed, the permanent works engineer realised that they had not correctly accounted for the loading from a ship impact and required substantial changes in the reinforcement. This was incorporated within the model, clash checked and the corresponding drawings and schedules generated within only two days to enable a short approval period for reinforcement to be delivered to site on time and the maximum re-use of previously ordered reinforcement from the now defunct design. This enabled us to achieve our deadline for the lowering of the East Abutment structure and did not impact the overall construction programme.

In addition to this, all structural steelwork for the temporary works was model, detailed and scheduled from Tekla by our fabrication department also enabling a comparison of geometry for the clash detection prior to installation.

May we please ask that you assist in bringing global recognition to this complex project and the hardworking team that delivered it, by casting your vote through the link below. Your vote could make the difference. Thank you.