In today’s news, we will look into the great scientific endeavour of the 21st century that gets under way and when it is completed in 2028, the SKA will be the largest radio telescope ever built. Meanwhile, a national prize for Net Zero construction was won by the Vanguard Building construction company. Also, Hull’s technology campus is nearing completion of the final office space. Additionally, the “Phenomenal” Award-Winning Female Students of Leeds College of Building Are Recognized and Celebrated.

SKA: Largest telescope construction begins

Original Source: SKA: Construction to begin on world’s biggest telescope

On Monday, a major 21st-century scientific project begins building.

In 2028, the SKA will be the world’s largest radio telescope.

The centre will answer the largest astrophysical questions in South Africa and Australia, with a UK headquarters.

It will look for aliens and precisely test Einstein’s theories.

The project’s eight countries are holding ceremonies in Western Australia’s isolated Murchison shire and South Africa’s Northern Cape Karoo.

Bulldozers will arrive after the celebrations.

“This is the moment it becomes real,” said Prof Phil Diamond, Square Kilometre Array Organisation director general.

“30-year trip. The first 10 years were spent conceptualising. Technology development took 10 more. The final decade was about precise planning, acquiring locations, persuading nations to agree to set up a treaty organisation (SKAO) and providing finances to start, “told BBC News.

The telescope will initially have slightly under 200 parabolic antennas, or “dishes,” and 131,000 dipole antennas, which look like Christmas trees.

A hundred-thousand-square-metre collection area is the goal.

The SKA will examine sky objects with unprecedented sensitivity and resolution.

It will operate from 50 megahertz to 25 gigahertz. This wavelength is centimetres to metres.

This might allow the telescope to detect feeble radio signals from cosmic sources billions of light-years from Earth, including those from the first few hundred million years after the Big Bang.

The SKA will trace hydrogen’s whole history, the Universe’s most abundant element.

The telescope should detect hydrogen before vast clouds of it collapse to generate the earliest stars.

Dr. Shari Breen, the observatory’s head of science operations, said the SKA will impact numerous astronomical fields.

“The detected “rapid radio bursts” are one. These gadgets generate a year’s worth of solar energy in a second. They’re unknown. How? The SKA should respond.”

The telescope is being constructed on radio astronomy sites.

However, land agreements with Karoo farmers and Murchison Aboriginal title holders Wajarri Yamaji have been needed to enlarge these sites.

The Wajarri community organised Monday’s SKA inauguration.

Ceremonies will announce procurement contracts.

These will bring the entire cash commitment to little under €500m (£430m) of a €2bn building budget.

Four Australian dishes and six South African antenna stations should work together as a basic telescope in 2024, marking the first important milestone. This proof-of-principle will launch the array.

The SKA will collect a little under 500,000 square metres by 2028. However, it can increase to one million square metres or one square kilometre.

More countries joining and funding the organisation could do this.

South Africa, Australia, UK, China, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, and Switzerland are members. These nations ratified the treaty.

France, Spain, and Germany have joined.

Canada, India, Sweden, South Korea, and Japan plan to join.

“And we’re actually in the process of talking to other countries as well,” Prof. Diamond remarked.

Partner news: Vanguard Building wins national Net Zero award

Original Source: News from our partners: The Vanguard Building construction company nabs national Net Zero award

Read Construction, a Wrexham-based main contractor, won the national Constructing Excellence Net Zero award for Shropshire Council’s Vanguard Building project at Meole Brace School in Shrewsbury.

Last week, the project team attended the national awards, where the scheme competed against five other UK award-winning projects.

In the first year of the Net Zero category, the expert judging panel recognised the integrated team of designers, client, school stakeholders, contractor, and supply partners’ dedication to climate change solutions.

The building is a “first of a kind” Net Zero operating carbon education centre for Shropshire Council.

The development’s creative design helps combat climate change. Biodiversity and habitats were improved by this net zero carbon project.

Council building design advanced with the Vanguard Building. The council’s dedication to climate change is shown by its “zero carbon” design. A first for Shropshire school facilities, the building meets the Passivhaus standard.

Alex Read, Read Construction Director, said:

“We are happy to have been recognised for our Net Zero achievements at Meole Brace School, especially in Construction Excellence’s new award area. The Net Zero scenario has swiftly changed over the past 12 months, and we are now also focused on exceeding embodied carbon reduction targets to ensure future physical assets are designed as sustainably and considerately as possible.â€�

Ian Nellins, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for climate change, environment, and transport, said:

Read Construction’s Vanguard Building at Meole Brace School won the national Constructing Excellence Net Zero award. This is one of several prizes our new build has earned this year to help our climate change strategy.

“The Vanguard Building marks record-breaking sustainability for Shropshire Council, producing a future-proofed education facility that stands out as a ‘first of a type’ in achieving Net Zero operational emissions.

“Winning this award truly highlights the benefits of working in partnership and using the correct experience and talents of all those involved.” It stimulates us to expect even more sustainability in the future and gives us the chance to stand out.

I’d like to congratulate everyone.

Kirstie Hurst-Knight, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for children and education, said:

“Wonderful! Everyone deserves such an honour.

“We are investing in many projects to secure high-quality and sustainable primary and secondary places in Shrewsbury and adjacent areas, including our new state-of-the-art teaching hub at Meole Brace School.

“As a beacon of sustainable excellence, we are incredibly proud of the team who designed the site.” Children, future generations, and the community will benefit from the purpose-built structure.

“They’ve set a standard.â€�

Hull tech campus’s final office suite under construction

Original Source: Work underway on final office suite in Hull’s tech campus

After Northallerton, Wykeland hired Castlehouse Construction from West Yorkshire.

The final office building on Hull’s economy-boosting tech complex is being built, and it will be the city’s greenest.

As announced in August, Wykeland Group’s @TheDock waterfront property would add 11,000 sq ft. A Net Zero build might add 150 digital jobs. It adjoins the C4DI tech hub.

Castlehouse Construction of West Yorkshire is building the Harris Partnership-designed building.

Read more: Huge Hull family firm Arco welcomes new CEO

Next summer, 300 workmen will finish the project.

John Gouldthorp, asset manager at Hull-based Wykeland, said: “It’s excellent that work is now starting on this exciting development. @TheDock has been a huge success, and this latest phase shows our faith in the tech sector’s expansion in Hull and the region.

“Our past investments on this site have created dozens of new digital enterprises and hundreds of highly-skilled IT jobs. This last building will offer exciting new prospects to join one of the UK’s most successful innovation groups in a sustainable building.â€�

Piling began after site preparation and groundworks. Rotating screws reduce noise.

Castlehouse Construction, founded in 2009, delivers commercial, education, retail, healthcare, and residential projects with a near-£30m revenue. The first phase of Wykeland’s award-winning Treadmills mixed-use development on the former Northallerton Prison site in North Yorkshire cost £20 million.

Leeds construction director Phil Dewell said, “We’re happy to have been contracted to create what will be a high-quality, sustainable commercial development in an excellent position in Hull.

We were thrilled to collaborate with Wykeland again. Wykeland builds projects that boost the local economy. We’re thrilled to finish @TheDock, a city-changing tech campus.

The European Regional Development Fund-supported building will have a roof-mounted solar array and a green roof and wall section to support biodiversity and insulate it.

Its BREEAM Very Good sustainability rating will place it in the top 25% of non-domestic buildings nationwide. Air source heat pumps will mechanically heat, cool, and ventilate it, giving it the highest EPC energy rating of A. Undercroft car parking will have electric vehicle charging points, cycle storage, and energy-efficient sensor lighting.

Wykeland and PPH are selling 2,250-square-foot units in the speculative build for single or multiple occupancy.

Leeds College of Building Honors Female Award-Winners

Original Source: Leeds College of Building Celebrates “Phenomenal� Award-Winning Female Students

Leeds College of Building staff are thrilled after a record number of student award wins, led by women.

After three days of competition, SkillBuild UK National Finals 2022 medalists were named. The finalists competed in the national finals at Edinburgh College from 15–17 November after seven months of regional heats and hard training.

A Leeds College of Building student won gold at the largest UK multi-trade competition for construction trainees and apprentices at Steph McGovern’s Packed Lunch studio award presentation.

Sparta Systems Ltd. apprentice Zara Dupont won gold in Plastering & Drywall Systems. Zara won the Governor’s Award at the College’s BIG awards presentation.

The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) and WorldSkills UK host the “Skills Olympics,” where trainees fight to gain their trade.

Zara remarked, “I wasn’t expecting it, but I was hopeful I would [perform well] this year as I thought I did so much better than [after entering SkillBuild] last year. My name for gold stunned me. This should help me in life.â€�

SkillBuild UK’s success followed Leeds College of Building student Rebekah Woodend’s 2022 BTEC Construction Learner of the Year award. Rebekah is pursuing a BTEC HND in Construction & the Built Environment (Surveying). She works full-time, raises two children, and cares for her boyfriend.

A Leeds College of Building Level 6 Civil Engineering Site Management Degree Apprentice at BAM Nuttall Ltd. was named CIHT Apprentice of the Year the week before. Alisa Ahmad earned an EngTECH MICE professional certificate after completing her Level 5 Civil Engineering Apprenticeship in June.

Finally, Leeds College of Building apprentice Leora Wilson reached the National Apprenticeship Awards 2022 finals in London at a special ceremony (30 November). Leora was automatically accepted into the national awards after winning “Advanced Apprentice of the Year” at the London regional final.

Mott MacDonald employs second-year Leeds College of Building Transport Planning Technician Apprentice Leora.

Leeds College of Building’s first female Principal & CEO, Nikki Davis, said: “We are incredibly delighted of all our students and apprentices who have won distinction at so many prominent national awards. These competitions honour the best emerging construction talent. It’s amazing that so many female students and future role models are impacting construction.

Congratulations to our hardworking personnel who unlock our students’ potential. They inspire students in civil engineering, transit planning, trade crafts, and surveying. College and hands-on job experience with our excellent employer partners are actually altering lives and boosting the skills needed for a strong regional and national economy.â€�

Summary of today’s construction news

Overall, we discussed that workers will begin constructing the SKA, which will become the largest radio telescope in the world by 2028. It’ll probe the cosmos for extraterrestrial life and put Einstein’s ideas to the test with pinpoint accuracy.

Meanwhile, for their work on the Vanguard Building project for the Shropshire County Council at Meole Brace School in Shrewsbury, a principal contractor located in Wrexham was awarded the national Constructing Excellence Net Zero award.

In addition, Wykeland then contracted Castlehouse Construction of West Yorkshire after Northallerton. The city of Hull is now constructing the most environmentally friendly office building in the UK.

On top of that, Staff at Leeds College of Building are ecstatic because a record number of students, headed by women, have won awards this year. Medalists in the SkillBuild UK National Finals 2022 were determined after three days of competition. Following seven months of qualifying rounds and rigorous preparation, the finalists participated in the national finals at Edinburgh College on November 15-17.