Tuesday 13 March 2001
Supreme Award For New Zealand Pedigree Bridge Design
IPENZ, the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand, honoured Beca Carter Hollings & Ferner with two Awards for Engineering Excellence for the design of South Island bridge icon, the Otira Viaduct.
Described as a unique engineering feat and one of New Zealand’s most ambitious engineering projects in an extreme
environment, the bridge in Arthur’s Pass National Park, impressed the judges in both the infrastructure and
environmental category.
The New Zealand owned consultancy used a range of leading edge and innovative design and construction techniques to meet
the challenges of the unusually demanding bridge site deep in the Southern Alps which is dominated by fast flowing
water, unusually hard rock boulders, rock falls, seismic and climatic extremes.
Beca is New Zealand’s largest privately owned multi-disciplinary engineering consulting practice and is in the top 200
international design firms (Source: Engineering News Record, Dec. 2000).
With approximately 1,100 staff, Beca’s head office is in Auckland with regional offices across New Zealand (Wellington,
Christchurch, Tauranga, Hamilton, New Plymouth) and affiliated or associated companies in Sydney, Melbourne, Port
Moresby, Singapore, Brunei, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Suzhou.
Beca is a diversified, multidisciplinary consultancy that provides consulting engineering and related consultancy
services to a wide range of client sectors including industrial (food and beverage, forestry, mining & metals, power systems), water and wastewater, roading and commercial building.
The practice has undertaken projects in 41 countries and designs and supervises projects of a total value in excess of
NZ$ 2,000 million annually. Recent local projects include the terminal expansion at Wellington and Auckland
International Airports, Thorndon Overbridge Retrofit in Wellington and the Sky Tower & Casino in Auckland. Current projects include the Wellington Stadium, co-engineering for the Manukau Waste Water
Treatment Plant and the 338 m Macau Tower.
ends