22/6/2012 -

Maccaferri was awarded “International Project of the Year” on Friday, May 4, 2012. The Ground-Engineering Awards, hosted by actor and presenter Robert Llewellyn, were presented at the Grosvenor House Hotel on London’s Park Lane, London, England. Attended by just under 400 leaders in consultancy and contracting in the geotechnical engineering industry, these awards brought together the key players in the industry and the ones to watch.

Claire Symes, editor of GE magazine commented:  “The record number of entries this year underlines the fact that UK geotechnical professionals continue to deliver high quality work and innovation across the world and we have a few new categories today to help celebrate that achievement. Although business continues to be extremely tough, particularly in the UK and Europe, the GE Awards finalists have each demonstrated that investment in excellence does still reap both short and long term rewards for their business and their clients businesses. The quality, breadth and scale of the entries this year demonstrates the huge impact the ground engineering profession continues to have on the global infrastructure market.”

Maccaferri’s winning project was the construction of reinforced soil walls and slopes at a new airport at Pakyong in the Himalayan state of Sikkim in North East India. The airport will provide direct access for tourists and trade to this remote, yet beautiful region of the world. The region is home to diverse flora and fauna, a major draw to the tourists to the area, yet is currently only accessible by road and the nearest airport, Bagdogra, is 120km away, with the state capital, Gangtok, being 35km away.

The Rup2560 M (£31M) project features a 550m wide, 1.7km long corridor was required in which the runway and airport buildings are constructed for client, Airports Authority of India (AAI). This was to be carved from the mountainous topography using massive geotechnical “cut and fill” engineering works. Traditional retaining structures of the height required, a massive 74m, would be prohibitively expensive and may not adequately cope with the seismic conditions. Conversely, shallow earthwork embankments would consume too much area. Therefore, extensive use of geogrid soil reinforcement and slope stabilization was used to maximize the development area.

Main designer Mott Macdonald--India and Dehli-based main contractor, Punj Lloyd, worked with Maccaferri’s Indian subsidiary, Maccaferri Environmental Solutions Pvt Ltd. to carry out the soil reinforcement and slope stabilization works.

Matt Showan, International Marketing Manager for Maccaferri commented: “Maccaferri is delighted to receive this notable award. To be selected from the shortlist of such high caliber geotechnical designers and contractors is a privilege. It is a testament to our teams in India and our project partners Mott MacDonald and Punj Lloyd that we have won today. At more than 70 m high, we believe this project to be amongst the tallest reinforced soil structures in the world and is a symbol of Maccaferri’s intent and rapid growth into this sector.”

The shortlisted projects for the International Project of the Year were:

About Maccaferri

For more than 130 years, Officine Maccaferri has provided innovative solutions to the construction industry and built environment. Renowned as the world leader in gabion retaining structures, Maccaferri has diversified significantly over the past 10 years and now offers engineered solutions from reinforced soil structures to pavement reinforcement and from rockfall mitigation to tunneling systems. Maccaferri’s vision is to become a leading international provider of advanced solutions to the construction market. Implementing a strategy of vertical integration, Maccaferri researches, designs, supplies and now constructs solutions within its target markets.

From worldwide headquarters in Bologna, Italy, Maccaferri has a turnover of more than €430M, through 25 manufacturing facilities and local operations in 100 countries around the world.

Officine Maccaferri is at the heart of the Maccaferri Industrial Group which is, in turn, part of the S.E.C.I. Holding Group; A true conglomerate with interests in diverse fields including, power generation, mechanical engineering, bioengineering and agriculture.