First Prize Awarded to CRAFT’s Siebrandus Wichers, International Design for Safety Competition

The root cause of many accidents in the construction industry can be traced back to the original design and decisions made during the design process.  For the second year in a row, and to raise awareness of the role of the designer in safety, the Lighthouse Club organised the International Design for Safety Award Competition.

This year the award ceremony was held on 24 March 2017 at the Hong Kong Club, and attended by the Construction Industry’s leading professionals and we are pleased to announce that CRAFT’s Siebrandus Wichers was awarded the top prize.

The award was to recognise the individual engineering designer who is considered to have most contributed to eliminating, reducing and mitigating the health and safety risks in their design, which was reflected in the construction, cleaning, maintenance and eventual modification/removal of the asset.  Along with the other engineering designers, Sieb submitted a portfolio of one of the company’s projects at the beginning of the year. The portfolio showcased ten of his decisions in the design process of the Singapore Sports Hub and was focused on pre-fabricating roofing units at ground level in order to mitigate the risks of working at height. All of the safe design decisions were substantiated with technical and photographic evidence. He then presented his design to a panel of judges and defended his work with a Q&A session of industry experts.

Upon winning the award, Sieb noted, “The discussion about safety forms a red line through all phases in any construction project. As such, a project’s lifecycle should be safe by design. The Lighthouse Club design for safety competition reiterates its importance and allows us all to continue that ongoing conversation, which is in line with our company motto: safety first.”

If you’d like to learn more about the competition please don’t hesitate to contact the Lighthouse Club: lighthousehkg@gmail.com.