On October 13, the Kurt Beyer Award was presented for the 26th time at the TU Dresden. Since 1996, this award has been presented annually for outstanding final theses by students and young scientists in the fields of civil engineering and architecture. The prize, which is endowed with a total of EUR 5,000, is sponsored by HOCHTIEF lnfrastructure GmbH, Southeast Germany branch. The award ceremony took place in the Carbonbetonhaus Cube on the TU Dresden campus.

The Kurt Beyer Prize for 2022 was awarded to Dr. Oliver Steinbock from the Faculty of Civil Engineering for his dissertation "Reinforcement of reinforced and prestressed concrete bridges with carbon concrete" and to Dipl.-Ing. Yaning Zhao from the Faculty of Architecture for her thesis "Werk. Space. Castle. Revitalization of Schnaditz Castle".

With his dissertation, Dr. Oliver Steinbock presented a comprehensive analysis of the potential of carbon concrete for the reinforcement of bridge structures with a focus on the flexural load-bearing capacity. The starting point of his work is our aging bridge stock. Compared to the time of construction, the load on many structures has increased considerably due to the enormous increase in vehicle volumes and significantly higher permissible axle loads. The demands on the structures have also increased in relation to changes in temperature and weather conditions since they were built. The basic idea of Mr. Steinbock's research work coincides with a central concern of the currently most important research activities in civil engineering: Mitigating the negative impacts on climate change caused by the enormous consumption of resources and the significant climatic impacts of worldwide construction activity as the demand for infrastructure and housing continues to grow. With his work, Mr. Steinbock shows a way to keep existing structures usable as long as it is at all possible by adapting them to new requirements - in other words, by strengthening them.

In his letter of recommendation for the award, Professor Curbach writes: "I am convinced that his design models will contribute to significantly facilitating the planning and implementation of carbon concrete reinforcements on bridges in the future. Mr. Steinbock has written an outstanding dissertation that offers considerable added value with regard to the preservation of our infrastructure and thus represents an important contribution to the solution of pressing problems of our time. Mr. Steinbock has mastered the extremely demanding task in a committed, creative, technically sound and goal-oriented manner. In addition to the professional and technical elaboration, the submitted work convinces with a very good formal, linguistic and graphic style.

In her diploma thesis, Ms. Yaning Zhao dealt with Schnaditz Castle near Bad Düben, a listed building ensemble of partly medieval origin, whose building fabric has been increasingly threatened by decay since the 1990s. Part of the former farm buildings of the associated estate has already been demolished. The castle itself has been empty for several years. The task
of the diploma thesis was the development of a sustainable utilization concept for the castle area, taking into account the location, the existing buildings and open spaces. The architectural design based on this was to propose functionally and aesthetically convincing interventions and additions for the revitalization of the castle area through high-quality structural interventions and appropriate handling of the valuable building stock.

In her letter of recommendation for the award, Professor Dr. Claudia Marx writes: "Ms. Zhao's diploma thesis is convincing in several respects: through its phased concept of use, which envisages a step-by-step repair, conversion and development of the castle grounds and responds wisely to impulses and needs on site.

Second, through its sensitive treatment of the valuable building stock, the work argues that necessary and artisanal repairs can sustainably and permanently preserve the palace ensemble.The author's sense for a resource-saving handling of the currently neglected stock makes her work a very relevant contribution to the current sustainability discourse in building.Furthermore, Ms. Zhao's addition and completion of the former manor house with three quality designed and finished wooden buildings proves her ability to combine use, function, craft construction techniques and ecological aspects of building in a meaningful and sophisticated way. With her thesis, she makes an important contribution to the discussion on the resource-conserving use of existing buildings as a contribution to sustainable construction as well as to the preservation of architectural heritage, and in my opinion deserves a nomination for the Kurt Beyer Prize.

more information  about Kurt-Beyer-Preis

André Terpe
Faculty of Civil Engineering, Press and Public Relations
andre.terpe@tu-dresden.de