A team of Liverpool students have been named winners of the Novus Student Challenge 2018 Northern and offered a work placement with Morgan Sindall, after impressing judges with their vision to design a new building in the city’s Knowledge Quarter.
Alex Dawes, Jack Heaney, Kyle Dougan and Ben Tregear, all final year students on the Liverpool John Moores University BSc (Hons) Construction Management programme, beat rival Construction Management university students from Manchester, Liverpool and Preston in the 2018 CIOB competition.
The teams were tasked with designing a temporary multi-functional “knowledge hub” facility within Liverpool’s £1bn Paddington Village development, which is being delivered by Morgan Sindall. The structure will be used by the local community for education, training and digital technology skills sessions.
The CIOB competition brought together students from across the North West to demonstrate their creativity, teamwork and industry knowledge. During the task, the students were given time to research and develop their proposal before presenting to a panel of expert judges, including Morgan Sindall bid manager, Owen Ashton.
Ashton, who is also chairman of CIOB’s Preston hub, said: “The quality of this year’s competition was exceptional and we received some outstanding proposals from students.
“We were looking for standout proposals that demonstrated a cost-effective solution to deliver a safe and positive experience for the local community around the Paddington Village site.
“We were extremely impressed with the work from all of the teams that took part in the challenge and it’s encouraging to see this talent pool of students entering the industry.”
The winners saw off stiff competition from teams from University of Manchester, University of Salford, University Centre Blackburn College and University of Central Lancashire.
Barry Roberts, area director at Morgan Sindall, said: “Competitions such as this act as a great opportunity for us to engage with students and to see first-hand their enthusiasm for the industry. It’s a fantastic achievement for the winners and we’re looking forward to welcoming them on-site with us later this year.”
