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Department of Engineering

Constructionarium week: putting theory into practice

Constructionarium week: putting theory into practice

Consultation

A group of 33 third year undergraduate Engineering students were involved in the residential construction week of the Constructionarium module.

The practical and interactive experience, and engagement with fellow classmates and engineers and contractors from industry is a great leap in building confident and competent future engineers.

Talia da Silva

This is a module offered primarily to Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering students as one of the projects to be completed in the Part IIA tripos, and is run by the Constructionarium group at the National Construction College in Kings Lynn.

The principle of Constructionarium is that students are required to construct scaled-down replicas of real civil engineering projects such as bridges, buildings and dams. The project is carried out in conjunction with a contractor and civil engineering consultant to link academia to industry. This year, together with support from Laing O’Rourke as the contractor and Ramboll as the engineer, the students constructed replicas of the Ravenspurn Oil Platform in the North Sea and the Knightsgate Bridge in Durham.

Before the construction week, in the planning phase, students were required to develop project management plans, construction budgets, method statements and risk assessments; this exposed the students to the required safety and planning procedures conducted before the construction work. During the construction work itself, students were fully responsible for all aspects of construction, under supervision from Laing O’Rourke, and were responsible for the design of temporary works as well as the execution of quality control and safety procedures. Daily project meetings were held to report back on programme, budget, quality and safety to mimic a real-world construction project. On completion of the project, a final presentation was made and students were required to reflect on differences between what was envisaged in the planning stage and the actual construction experience.

Despite the tremendous amount of effort and planning required and long working days, the students who participated greatly enjoyed the learning experience and chance to put theoretical knowledge and design skills into practice! This module provides the opportunity for students to gain an in-depth understanding of what is required to successfully design and execute a construction project, the importance of planning and health and safety awareness. The reflection and reporting required after the successful completion of the projects provided valuable insight for future careers in the built environment industry.  

Constructionarium also provided a wonderful opportunity for the students to learn teamwork, communication and project management: core personal skills that are vital in any further study or career path that the students undertake. The practical and interactive experience, and engagement with fellow classmates and engineers and contractors from industry is a great leap in building confident and competent future engineers.

The organisers of the Constructionarium module at the University of Cambridge would like to thank Laing O’Rourke for their generous financial support of this module, as well as Ramboll for the donation of their time as the engineering consultants in this project.

Dr Mohammed Elshafie is a Laing O'Rourke University Lecturer in Construction Engineering and is the Constructionarium Course leader. Talia da Silva and Dr Waleed Hamad assisted in the course and are a PhD student in the Civil Engineering Division and research associate in the Mechanics, Materials and Design Division respectively.

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