The 25th anniversary of the Galvanizers Association Galvanizing Awards celebrated conservation, innovation and sustainability when it was held on Friday the 7th June. Projects that prioritised public engagement with landscape and resident culture were favourites with the judges, with winners evidencing strongly the connection between the built world and nature.
2019 GAGA Winners
2019 Architecture Award Winner
Picking up an award this year was The Rising Path by chadwick dryer clarke studio. This visitor centre for Cambridge University Estates impressed the judges by creating an immersive journey through a New Pinetum at the Botanic Gardens, Cambridge. The project won the architecture award for its structural use of galvanized steel and hand driven concrete-free galvanized steel pile footings, which underpin a climbing path amongst the root protection zones of mature specimen trees.
Click to view more about the 2019 Architecture Award Winner
2019 Engineering Award Winner
Judges were also united on the sensitive restoration and conservation of Catrine Weir in East Ayrshire by Addison Conservation + Design, which has conserved a piece of heritage engineering for the next two hundred years. It won the engineering award for its use of a galvanized steel apron, which forms a shimmering crest to the weir and helps pick out the extraordinary light of the Ayrshire sky.
Click to view more about the 2019 Engineering Award Winner
“This has been a great year for the awards, not only have we celebrated a quarter of a century of the awards, we have once again made visible the extraordinary contribution that galvanizing makes to our built environment. ” Iqbal Johal, marketing manager at Galvanizers Association
2019 Sustainable Award Winner
This year the sustainable award was presented to Brightblue Studio for Hauxley Wildlife Discovery Centre in Northumberland. Their creative use of galvanized steel gabions as a structural element was an inspired means of using a volunteer workforce to help create a stunning, site sensitive building that both inspires and engages visitors with nature.
Click to read more about the 2019 Sustainable Award Winner
2019 Duplex & Detail Award Winners
The Duplex Systems Award was given to Studio Weave for their standout green roofed pavilion, which forms a central role in the redevelopment of the Thames Riverside Walk at Nine Elms, whilst the Galvanizing in Detail Award was picked up by dePaor for the Pálás Cinema in Galway.
Read more about the 2019 Duplex Award Winner This striking blasted concrete building uses galvanized steel for the bespoke hardware of the cinema; windows, sills, grills, canopy, handrails and guardings to create an extraordinary setting for European Cinema.
Read more about the 2019 Detail Award Winner
Highly Commended & Special Mention
A highly commended award was given to Stephen Taylor Architects in the Detail category, for their work on the 100% affordable Cadix Housing project in Belgium where galvanized steel was used to form the important communal design features for the project.
Read more about the 2019 Highly Commended Award The RHS commission for the Chelsea Flower Show, Root Bench, by Jailmake, received a special mention too. Beautifully folded sheet metal resembles a sprawling root system and works beautifully around the single tree planted seamlessly in the middle.
Read more about the 2019 Special Mention
2019 GAGA Judges
Thank you to all our entrants to this year’s Galvanizing Awards. The judging panel consisted of Matthew Wells (Techniker), Isabelle Priest (Riba Journal), Greg Storrar (Tonkin Liu) and Iqbal Johal (Galvanizers Association).
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Matthew Wells -
Isabelle Priest -
Greg Storrar -
Iqbal Johal
GAGA 2019 shortlisted entries
Our 2019 GAGA shortlist included a wide variety of projects ranging from intricate sculptures to major infrastructure projects. Click here to view all GAGA 2019 shortlisted entries or read more about the construction awards.
