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 Manor Lodge School - Designing for Nature and Nurture

When: March 13, 2026, 14-15 hrs CET. Register (Free): Click Here

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Speaker: Sarah Baigent, Structural Engineer at Price & Myers (IABSE David Nethercot Prize 2025 winner)

Moderator: David Knight, Chair, British Group of IABSE; Director at Cake Industries (NG1, organised by British NG).

Manor Lodge combined technical precision with personal growth. The project reinforced that good design depends not only on detailed specification, but also on collaboration and communication. Done properly, this creates a structure that is both functional and inspiring. At the picturesque school, the task was to replace a tired conservatory with a new, extended space for learning, play, and connection with nature. The challenges included working in difficult ground conditions, within an occupied school, whilst still keeping sustainability at the forefront. This project highlighted the challenges of working with existing buildings (even with record drawings), the need for teamwork and creative problem solving, and how every meeting can be improved with a bacon butty. Read the full paper here, which won the David Nethercot Prize in 2025.

IABSE Young Engineers Mentorship Event

When: April 1, 2026, 16:30 - 17:45 hrs CET (Hybrid). 

Register (Free) online: Click Here  onsite: Please write to xudong.jian@ibk.baug.ethz.ch

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Mentor 1: Dr. Kristian Schellenberg*, Switzerland. Mentor 2: Prof. Dr. Andreas Taras**, Switzerland

Moderator: Jian Xudong, IABSE Young Engineers Committee Member***

This is a Mentorship Programme which is being organised by the IABSE Young Engineers Commitee. The event will be hybrid for the first part only.

Programme is as following:

16:30-16:35: Introduction by Jian Xudong (hybrid)

16:35-17:00: Mentoring talk by Kristian Schellenberg (hybrid)

17:00-17:10: Q&A for Kristian Schellenberg (hybrid)

17:10-17:35: Mentoring talk by Andreas Taras (on-site only)

17:35-17:45: Q&A for Andreas Taras (on-site only)

After 17:45: Networking and apero (TBC) (on-site only)

*Mentor 1 Kristian Schellenberg: Dr. Kristian Schellenberg is a passionate bridge engineer with a strong commitment to international collaboration and a long-standing involvement with IABSE, an association that has accompanied and shaped his entire professional career. He is currently Chair of the IABSE Swiss National Group. After completing his studies at ETH Zurich, including exchange periods in Spain and the United States, he remained at ETH Zurich as a research and teaching assistant to Thomas Vogel, Fellow Member and former Vice-President of IABSE. During this time, he completed a PhD on the design of rockfall protection galleries. His professional experience spans international design offices such as Gruner (Switzerland) and COWI (Denmark), as well as being responsible for engineering structures at the cantonal road office of Grisons. He is now Managing Director of Equi Bridges, which was founded five years ago.

**Mentor 2 Andreas Taras: Prof. Andreas Taras is a Full Professor of Steel and Composite Structures at ETH Zurich. His research and teaching focus on the behaviour, reliability, and design of steel and steel–concrete composite structures. He combines experimental investigations, numerical modelling, and design-oriented research, contributing to both academic knowledge and engineering practice. Prof. Taras also serves as Deputy Head of the Institute of Structural Engineering. He is actively involved in professional activities within the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering (IABSE) and previously served as Chair of the Swiss IABSE National Group.

***Moderator Jian Xudong: Xudong Jian is a Postdoctoral Researcher at ETH Zurich under the supervision of Prof. Eleni Chatzi, supported by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship from the European Commission. His research focuses on advancing Population-Based Structural Health Monitoring through the analysis of inspection and load-testing data from more than 400 bridges in Switzerland. He also contributes to the Swiss-BWIM project, in collaboration with the Swiss Federal Roads Office (ASTRA), contributing to the development and implementation of Bridge Weigh-In-Motion technology for traffic load identification and bridge health monitoring. In addition to his research activities, Xudong serves as Secretary and Board Member of the IABSE Young Engineers Committee.

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