Last night in Canberra at the 2013 Australian Engineering Excellence Awards, the Parsons Brinckerhoff and Arup (PBA) Joint Venture received the awards highest honour for their design of Airport Link.
PBA received the Sir William Hudson Award, the highest award for an engineering project that Engineers Australia confers, for the combined Airport Link, Northern Busway (Windsor to Kedron) and Airport Roundabout Upgrade projects in Brisbane.
“The judges were impressed by the execution, especially given the constraints, including a densely populated environment and the need to keep roads open which presented formidable design and construction challenges.
“The mechanical and electrical solutions demonstrated energy efficiency and the judges believe that the PBA Joint Venture delivered innovation in providing essential infrastructure to world-best standards.
Judges’ comment.
Characterised by its sheer size, extreme complexity and innovative design, the projects together form an extensive A$5.6b transport infrastructure scheme which has changed the way people travel across some of the busiest parts of the city, cutting travel times substantially.
PBA’s Project Director Luke van Heuzen said receiving the Sir William Hudson Award was an exceptional honour and recognition of a truly world class design achievement.
“I would like to congratulate the entire PBA team who worked tirelessly together with Thiess John Holland, BrisConnections and City North Infrastructure to deliver this project in a constrained brownfields location in under four years of construction effort.
“Receiving this recognition from industry through Engineers Australia is a remarkable feat when you consider the high calibre of innovative and landmark projects across Australia. It is a genuine honour for the team to be recognised for having delivered ‘the best of the best’.
Luke van Heuzen
This success follows recent global recognition for PBA who last week was awarded the International Road Federation’s (IRF) 2013 Global Road Achievement Award (GRAA) in Saudi Arabia for the design of the project.
The Sir William Hudson Award is inspired by the achievements of Sir William Hudson, who was the first Commissioner of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Authority and is acclaimed by engineers around the world.