Soccer City takes top honours at the Fultons

The prestigious biannual awards known in the construction industry as the Fultons, was held at the Champagne Sports Resort in the Drakensberg from 19-21 June this year.

The history of the awards spans over 30 years since its inception by the Concrete Society in 1979. In essence, through the Fulton Awards, the Concrete Society is recognising and rewarding excellence and innovation in the use of concrete – the promotion of which is the core of the Society’s mission statement.

According to Francois Bain, President of the Concrete Society, the Fulton Awards is the benchmark event by which the Built Environment and Construction Industry participants measure themselves against their peers and it is truly the premier construction industry awards in South Africa.

He was struck by the ingenuity that the designers and constructors showed amongst this year’s entrants, especially when it came to tackling technical aspects of the various projects.

“It is good to see that designers have, in so many cases, used good quality off-shutter concrete as final finishes resulting in ‘honest’ structures. The effective use of high quality finish precast concrete elements, sometimes of significant proportions, in so many of the projects, was striking.”

The judges on this year’s panel which included Mr Bain were
Al Stratford and Elsebe Kearsley – who are both doyens in their field of expertise. They noted that in most of the projects entered, sustainability and green building aspects are no longer just ethereal talking points, but are actually becoming mainstream in terms of design considerations. They also found it particularly encouraging to see that the gradual process of conventional labour-based concepts of the previous decade into the more attractive option of skills development labour which is where a lot of focus is being placed in the current construction environment across the board.

“It is encouraging to see that the philosophy behind the well-used phrase of give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime is being applied,” remarks Mr Bain.

Soccer City Stadium received the overall building prize and the judges were particularly impressed by the extensive use of concrete products, both as complex structural elements as well as for high quality aesthetic finishes.

“This grand project proves the ability of the South African construction industry to deliver high-quality mega-projects in limited time spans. It was particularly striking to note how well structural and architectural issues appear to have been co-ordinated and resolved, notwithstanding these constraints,” the judges cited after their visit to the stadium.

Soccer City also won the Concrete in Architecture award for the innovative culturally identifiable form of the calabash which stimulates a truly African image to the rest of the world. The fact that the architectural design dictates that the RC access ramps are included inside the calabash façade cladding, results in a clean perspective of the calabash curves when viewed from afar.

Grinaker-LTA is proud to have been the main contractor on this magnificent project and their commitment to excellence and quality through innovation and careful design considerations makes them a worthy recipient of these prestigious awards.