Outstanding Year For The James Rennie Medal Award

The three finalists, Hisanao Kajiura (Kaji), Maisie Wong and Nick Holt all presented and defended their projects at One Great George Street in London. All three demonstrated in depth understanding of engineering principles in design and construction, reflecting Rennie’s values, but it was Kaji who won the Award.

Kaji told ICE: “I am extremely happy to have won this year’s James Rennie Medal. I really can’t find the words… I would definitely want to thank my friends, family and all my colleagues at TAISEI, HPR (High Point Rendel) and Arup who have supported me. This has been such a challenging yet rewarding experience. I cannot emphasise how proud I am to have won such a prestigious award.” Kaji will be presented with the medal and £500 cash prize at the ICE Annual Awards Ceremony later in this year.

A great achievement
The finalists were selected from nearly 1,000 of their peers because of their outstanding qualities in all attributes and their significant contribution to the promotion and development of civil engineering.

More about the presentations
Kaji: Make the Impossible Possible
Kaji’s project, ‘Make the Impossible Possible’ talked about how a civil engineer contributes to achieving the aims of a project and demonstrated the benefits of being a construction professional whilst working on the Djibouti Hotel, North Africa.
Maisie Wong: Challenges in Uganda
Maisie focussed on her work in Uganda on the Soroti Medical Center and the CASSO Orphanage Project. She highlighted the challenges faced regarding heath, safety and welfare and some of the key technical and commercial difficulties she overcame for construction in a developing country.
Nick Holt: Live rails and a youth club
Nick’s inspiring presentation 'Liverpool University Engineering Restructuring Project/Wigan Boys and Girls Youth Club’ focused on the technical challenges he encountered while designing the university’s new engineering department, which was constructed above live rail lines, and the project management challenges he faced while managing the design of the Wigan Boys and Girls Youth Club.
Exceptional standard
David Lloyd-Roach, ICE Director of Membership, said “I am always so impressed with the standard of the James Rennie finalists, and this year was no exception. It was a phenomenally difficult choice…they were three outstanding presentations on radically different projects. ICE strives for a broad and inclusive membership, and this was really reflected by tonight’s finalists. Congratulations to all three of them, and especially Kaji for winning with his presentation. The complexity and his delivery of the project portrayed was very impressive