UCL Students Win Leading Construction Award

University College London (UCL) has won this year’s Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) Student Challenge 2009.

This year’s challenge required the students to act as land developers working to identify a suitable plot of land for elderly accommodation. The challenge consisted of a number of exhaustive exercises, which included producing a detailed written report on key factors required for a site to be suitable for accommodation. As well as a ten minute presentation to industry experts that covered recommendations for the proposed project.  

Competing against nine other teams, the students from London impressed the judges with their proposal, which discussed the suitability of the area in which the team decided to locate the building and also the design features the accommodation would contain.

The Judging Panel included Tim Gilby and Neil Freeman from McCarthy & Stone, Bridget Boreham, CIOB Chief Operating Officer and Angus Foster CIOB Head of Branch Development.


Tim Gilby McCarthy & Stone development director said, “I was very impressed with the standard of the competing teams. The subject matter was unfamiliar to them and the ‘raw’ nature of the real life site data provided had not been modified to ease their task. Nevertheless their analysis and team work generated numerous points of key relevance that practitioners in this field deal with on a daily basis.

“Consequently, and at very short notice, the candidates produced high quality submissions and presentations demonstrating a very good grasp of the principal issues. They were a credit to their colleges and the Institute. This bodes well for the forthcoming generation of building professionals.”

Other teams to reach the final included: Inverness College, City of Sunderland College, Huddersfield University, Anglia Ruskin University, Mid Kent College, the Institute of Technology from Carlow, Birmingham City University, University of Bolton and Coleg Sir Gar from Wales.