AESC Sunderland project wins Structural Steel Design Award

On Thursday, 23rd October, members of our project team attended the evening awards reception at the Landing Forty Two in London, hosted by the British Constructional Steelwork Association (BCSA) and Steel for Life. The ceremony celebrated excellence in structural steel design and construction across the UK and Ireland, and our project was one of just six to win from 21 shortlisted projects.

The AESC UK gigafactory in Sunderland is the UK’s first at scale gigafactory, which will manufacture AESC’s latest generation batteries. The state-of-the-art facility will have a capacity of 15.8 GWh and deliver a six-fold increase in UK electric vehicle battery production, accelerating the transition to net zero carbon mobility. 

Our multidisciplinary project team has been providing integrated services to our client Wates, including architecture, site masterplanning, structural and civil engineering, highway engineering, fire engineering, geotechnical engineering, and landscape design.

From concept design development through detailed construction design, we engaged closely with the teams from AESC and Wates to support the crucial planning consent process and develop efficient design solutions to meet the facility’s sophisticated manufacturing process.

As part of the project team, Severfield plc has been leading the structural steel design and its deployment, optimising performance and minimising carbon emissions from the superstructure against the set design principles and requirements. 

The judges commented: “This ambitious and nationally significant project hosts AESC’s cutting-edge production facility manufacturing batteries for 100,000 electric vehicles annually. Covering an area equivalent to 23 football pitches and with battery production technology evolving even as the building was being erected, the whole project team responded to the challenge with impressive speed and flexibility.”

Congratulations to the team involved in bringing this landmark steel-framed facility to life. We’re proud that our specialist technical expertise in advanced manufacturing design has been recognised with this prestigious award.

Image credits: Wates Construction Limited