CONCRETE SOCIETY AWARDS
NORTHERN IRELAND REGION AWARDS 2025
BUILDING PROJECT HIGHLY COMMENDED: DESIGN ID CONSULTING SHANKILL SHARED WOMEN’S CENTRE A sustainable solution driving societal transformation
Design ID was recognised with the highly commended Building Project Award for its work on the Shankill Shared Women’s Centre. Designed to foster peacebuilding and community cohesion, the £7.8m centre provides shared space for women and families across three floors, including childcare, education, health, youth and enterprise facilities. A sustainable concrete solution was used to effect societal transformation, turning a divided, contaminated site into a beacon of peace and empowerment. The project’s innovation lies in its engineering response to a contaminated brownfield site, using a piled raft slab to cap hazardous soils, eliminating the need for costly excavation and disposal. Concrete was mixed and transported with minimal disruption, placed using controlled methods to avoid dust and contamination spread, and cured under monitored conditions to ensure long-term performance. The slab also served as a thermal mass, contributing to energy efficiency. Structurally, a hybrid system combining steel framing for open-plan areas and load-bearing masonry elsewhere reduced steel usage by 50 tonnes and saved 126 tonnes of embodied CO₂, demonstrating a simple yet impactful sustainability-led design approach.
L-R: Ronan Gormely, Design ID, and Enda McKenna, Concrete Society NI.
T: +44 (0)28 9268 1055 E: mail@designid.co.uk www.designid.co.uk
BUILDING PROJECT WINNER: CREAGH CONCRETE GUILDFORD CRESCENT, CARDIFF Delivering a complex project involving meticulous planning
Creagh Concrete was named winner of the Building Project Award for Guildford Crescent, the tallest building in Cardiff. The private build- to-rent development comprises 272 high-quality apartments with communal spaces and a rooftop terrace. The structure is articulated into three interlocking blocks that step down from 31 to 26 to 22 storeys. The project’s complexity pushed boundaries with its location hemmed in by a train line, HMP Cardiff and a main arterial route. With space for only one delivery trailer at a time, precision became paramount, involving meticulous planning, tower cranes and steady just-in-time logistics. Using AI-driven design processes to 3D scan precast elements before they left the factory, Creagh delivered a smarter, more sustainable and efficient construction solution. Creagh deployed its Rapidres® offsite crosswall system, tailor-made for repetitive, high-rise residential layouts. Precast panels manufactured offsite with pre-integrated insulation, openings and even utilities arrived ready for swift assembly. The judging panel was also impressed with the use of coloured concrete throughout the project, particularly a copper finish on cladding used to replace aluminium cladding in initial designs.
L-R: Mark Gilliland, Creagh Concrete, and Enda McKenna, Concrete Society NI, and James McKeague, Creagh Concrete.
E: info@creaghconcrete.com www.creaghconcrete.com
www.nibuilder.co.uk
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