Week of 26 February
1. Ground-breaking at new Woodford Youth Detention Centre (Australia)
BESIX Watpac CEO Mark Baker, Youth Justice Minister Di Farmer, and Premier Steven Miles turned the soil at the site of the new Detention Centre at Woodford in Queensland. BESIX Watpac has been appointed lead contractor for the construction of this 627.61 million Australian dollar (379 million euros) new detention facility, which will be ready by the end of 2026.
2. Ministerial visit at Ajman wastewater treatment plant (UAE)
Hadja Lahbib, Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, recently visited our Ajman wastewater treatment plant, welcomed and guided by colleagues Elias Sfeir, General Manager of the facility, and Peter Lembrechts, General Manager BESIX Middle East.
Ajman Sewerage (ASPCL) brings together BESIX (40 %), the Government of Ajman (40 %), and VEOLIA (20 %). ASPCL built Ajman's entire wastewater collection network and treatment facilities, which were previously nonexistent, in the framework of the first PPP ever in the Middle East in this field. ASPCL still operates this infrastructure and continues to expand it by integrating new technologies. Since 2019, the plant also generates electricity using biogas produced by the wastewater treatment processes. A first in the region.
3. Saint-Denis Pleyel station renowned architect visits the site (France)
Last Tuesday, our colleagues at the Saint-Denis Pleyel project had the honour to welcome Kengo Kuma himself, the famous architect who designed the iconic St Denis Pleyel Station’s façade, and was crowned with numerous prestigious architecture prizes throughout his career, among others the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture.
Curious to see how this major element of the Grand Paris Express network has progressed so far? Watch this video:
4. Isopearls at Batibouw (Belgium)
Isopearls was present last week at Batibouw, the leading construction fair in Belgium. Their booth attracted several media, with Giuseppe ‘Pino’ Cicirelli, Director of Isopearls, giving several interviews for Belgian TV channels KanaalZ, LN 24, and RTBF. The journalists were particularly interested in Isopearl’s product as Batibouw focuses more and more on energy-efficient construction and renovation. Isopearls, a subsidiary of Vanhout, processes polystyrene to make high-quality insulation mortar.
And then this...
PhD student Yasmina Shields recently successfully defended her work “Self-healing concrete with a 3D printed ductile-porous vascular network” for which she conducted tests at the Avenue Henneau project. She now proudly holds the title of Doctor of Civil Engineering from Ghent University.
