A CIOB Prize, Competition and Thank You...

Congratulations to Toby Vokuhl, winner of the CIOB Masters Dissertation Award 2015

In March 2016, the CIOB (Chartered Institute of Building) announced the results of the CIOB International Innovation & Research Awards 2015. And a prize was awarded to one of the students (who has recently completed) the MSc Project Management in the Built Environment...Tobias Vokuhl (Toby). Toby won the Masters Dissertation Award (Highly Commended) for his dissertation 'Room to Swing a Kid? An Exploratory Study Into End-User Engagement With “Spatially Constrained” UK Family Homes'. More information about the award and Toby's dissertation is available on the CIOB website and press release.

For more information about the MSc Project Management in the Built Environment and Toby's experience on the course, take a look at the blog post: One slightly different MSc PMBE, two very different students...

Next, two teams from Oxford Brookes (Brookes 1 and Brookes 2) entered the CIOB NOVUS Bright Futures Challenge 2016. In the regional stage (London/East England) on 16 February, 18 teams competed in a pub style quiz round, followed by a sustainable house build challenge. Both teams from Oxford Brookes performed well and came 2nd (Brookes 1) and 4th (Brookes 2).

Team Brookes 1, photo courtesy of CIOB

Team Brookes 2, photo courtesy of CIOB

Team Brookes 1 went forward to the final round which took place on 1 March. The final gave the students the challenge of acting as 'consultants' giving their interpretations and views on where sites like the United Living site at Kilburn Park will be in 30 years time, and answering questions such as: What sustainability features will be used? What part will BIM play? How will management and communication change?

Brookes 1. At the final (photo courtesy of CIOB)

Here is the student report of the final (thanks to Ed Collins for this):

'The second CIOB event on the 1st March 2016 involved a visit to a live site in Kilburn. There were four teams, a masters team from UCL, a team from SDC (a team of people already in the industry) and a team from Anglia Ruskin. The Brookes 1 team who made it through to the final comprised of: Leonard Miller, Oli Kenworthy, Tom Jerrard and myself (Ed Collins, a last minute replacement for Ryan Quinlan, who was unable to make it).

First we had a live site visit where we were shown around the United Living development, part of the regeneration project for Brent. We were then asked to create a presentation (using PowerPoint), within 1 hour 30 minutes to the following brief: 'How future advances in construction techniques will improve the performance of this project/site and what improvements/new techniques we should expect to see in 2030 and beyond'.

We structured out presentation over the following criteria:

• Methods of Construction
• Technology and Innovation
• Communication Methods
• Materials and Logistics
• BIM
• Management processes
• Sustainability

Our presentation went very well. The questions we got at the end were a grilling, the first was to compare D&B contracting to NEC. When the points were calculated we were within one mark (of the average between the 5 judges) from the team who came first. We were told in the networking opportunity afterwards that we were very very close! We all enjoyed the day and celebrated with a couple of pints before coming back to Oxford. Photos are on the CIOB Facebook page'.

Finally, back in February 2016, the CIOB Oxford Branch held a CPD event at Oxford Brookes. The CPD presentation was given by Tom Holland, Pre-Construction Director at KLH UK and was entitled 'Is timber really the new concrete?' The photos shows John Youle (Beard Construction) presenting Tom with a 'thank you' bottle of wine. Lots of articles out there on this topic - take a look at the articles on Popular Science or Dezeen for more information.

John Youle (left) and Tom Holland.