Civil Engineering August 2022 | Vol 30 No 7

34 August 2022 Civil Engineering T he prestigious Fulton Awards, held every two years, recognise and honour “excellence in the design, use and innovation in concrete”. Originally scheduled for last year, the awards were postponed to 2022 because of the disruptive pandemic lockdowns and resultant economic pressures. The winners were announced at a gala func- tion in Johannesburg on 10 June and the event was for the first time streamed live to satellite functions in Durban and Cape Town. Perrie says he and his fellow judges – Stephen Humphries, director of Nyeleti Consulting, and Daniel van der Merwe, founder member of LEAF Architects – were immensely impressed by how the entrants for the Fulton Awards overcame the odds during the Covid-19 restrictions. “Included in some of the challenges were screening up to 400 workers daily on very congested sites, and having to deliver 150 m 3 of readymix concrete in 1 m 3 loads due to congestion in an inner-city loca- tion,” he says. The winners and commendations for the five entry categories for this year’s Fulton Awards are: INFRASTRUCTURE OF OVER R100 MILLION The winner is the new Ashton Arch in Ashton in the Western Cape, entered by design consultants AECOM S.A. The client for the project, hailed by the judges for its “unique bridge engineering technique”, was the Western Cape Government’s Department of Transport and Public Works. Stretched 22 m above Ashton’s Main Road, the spectacular bridge features five 15.5 m overhead wishbone beams. The main contractor was Haw & Inglis Civil Engineering. Fulton Award Commendations in this category are a Namibian govern- ment project, Neckartal Dam in the Keetmanshoop/Kharas region, entered by Knight Piésold Consulting, and the Vlakfontein Reservoir in Benoni, a Rand Water project entered by admixture sup- plier Chryso SAF. INFRASTRUCTURE OF UNDER R100 MILLION The winner in this category is the modification of the Umhlatuzana River Bridge in Durban. Entered by the eThekwini Municipality Roads Provision Department’s Structures Branch, which undertook the project for the municipality’s Engineering Unit, the bridge won the judges’ praise for “the unique solution that overcame extensive challenges to save a large part of the bridge while causing limited damage to the existing habitat.” The road bridge, severely damaged in KwaZulu-Natal’s 2019 floods, links Seaward Road in Clairwood with Sarnia in Pinetown. Fulton Awards A showcase of quality concrete construction Ingenuity, innovation, and the high-quality workmanship of the South African concrete industry were distinctive features of all 24 entries in the 2022 Fulton Awards, says Bryan Perrie, CEO of Cement & Concrete South Africa (CCSA). The new Ashton Arch in the Western Cape