Skip to content

2023 WINNER REVEALED - WATCH THE CEREMONY

See who made the longlist and final shortlist for 2023.

The B1M's Construction Story of the Year award highlights the world’s most inspiring and impressive construction story. We’re looking for amazing projects, ideas or initiatives that show the very best of the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) sectors. Entries for 2023 are now closed.

The B1M creates a short video for each of the top three finalists, showcasing their work to the world. Our audience's reaction to these videos helps our judges' pick an overall winner!

Construction Story of the Year is brought to you by The B1M in partnership with Nemetschek.

The Winner

The winning story will capture the very best of construction and become a beacon for promoting this great sector to the wider world. It'll be of high impact, show how people came together and collaborated for the greater good, have moved the industry forward and be goose-bump-level inspiring.

The Prize

  • Global exposure on the world’s largest and most subscribed-to construction and built environment channel
  • An extended interview with The B1M's Founder Fred Mills, shared across our social platforms
  • A short video showcasing your story for 12 months, shared across The B1M’s platforms
  • A feature article published on TheB1M.com and Nemetschek.com
  • A year’s VIP access to The B1M’s events

The B1M will create a short video for each of the top three finalists, showcasing their work to the world. Our audience's reaction to these videos will help to inform our judges' final decision! 

Who Can Enter

You can nominate yourself, your team or someone you know who meets the criteria. We’re accepting entries from individuals and project teams that have progressed or completed a project, activity or initiative in the AEC industry over the past year. We cannot accept entries for entire businesses. Please note that entries must be for projects, activities or initiatives that were either ongoing or have reached completion after 1 January 2022. 

2023 Key Dates

ENTRIES FOR 2023 ARE NOW CLOSED

Judging Criteria

Entries should show the clear, tangible impact they have had on an overall project outcome, or on the community and/or people they were intended to help and serve. 

We want to see how a particular project or engineering achievement made a difference to a bigger overall outcome and helped set a benchmark for other project teams around the world to look to and replicate. For initiatives or activities, we want to see the big, clear, tangible difference this has made against the challenge(s) it set out to solve.

Successful entries will demonstrate how their actions could inspire others around the world and be adopted across the global AEC sectors. 

Entries should demonstrate how high levels of positive, constructive collaboration between teams helped them to achieve their mission. We want to see how people, departments and organisations have overcome differences in approach, culture or business objectives to achieve a shared goal. 

Within that, we’re particularly keen to see how digital collaboration tools have helped to further aid or improve working between teams, particularly as remote work has risen in prevalence. The principles of openness and democracy are key – how were easy-to-use, intuitive tools used to engage all parties or members of the supply chain? Were OpenBIM principles embraced across the design team?

Both the construction sector and the world it serves face immense challenges. Construction must become more efficient, diverse and sustainable if it is to – among other things – tackle the climate emergency, provide housing for all and build a better world. 

Entries should demonstrate how they have helped to move construction forward. That might be by addressing inefficiency and cutting waste, creating impactful digital tools, developing digital twins, pioneering new sustainable or eco-friendly materials, helping to tackle the climate emergency, promoting gender and racial equality, or working to solve the housing crisis.  

Stories are one of the main ways that human beings communicate – and Construction Story of the Year needs to be good!

Entries should be instantly inspiring and give you that feeling on the back of your neck. We’re looking for submissions that have the power to engage and captivate our global audience, compelling them to learn more about this amazing industry. 

The winning entry will speak to the best of construction and be a beacon for promoting the sector to the wider world.

Inspiration can take many forms. The consequence and potential impact of a simple change or initiative can sometimes be more effective at inspiring people than a huge project or amazing feat of engineering. What have you had to overcome to make this a reality? What did it take to get there? Why is this an inspiring story for others to hear?

All entries – especially for activities and initiatives – must be viable with proven traction. This needs to be real and at the very least have some strong early results. Unfortunately, hypothetical concepts or proposals will not be accepted. Get going on that big idea and enter it next year! 

If the entry is in its prototype or pilot stage, we'll want to see evidence that you have begun to test your idea and that it’s grounded in reality. You should describe the groundwork already done, note whom you are working with to implement the project, and show that you have the right combination of skills among your team to make it possible.

Our Judges

Yewande Akinola MBE
Engineering Designer and Innovator

Yewande is a chartered engineer, innovator and speaker. Her engineering experience includes the design and construction, innovation and manufacture of buildings and systems in the built environment. She's worked on projects in the UK, Africa, the Middle East and East Asia and has been named the UK Young Woman Engineer of the Year by the Institution of Engineering and Technology. She has also been awarded the Exceptional Achiever Award from the Association for BAME Engineers and the Association of Consultancy and Engineering, UK (ACE). She is passionate about STEM communication and has presented Engineering programmes for Television. In the 2020 New Year Honours list, Yewande was awarded an MBE for services to engineering innovation and diversity in STEM. She has recently been appointed the UK's Innovation agency (Innovate UK) Ambassador for Clean Growth and Infrastructure.

Professor Jacqui Glass
Vice Dean Research, The Bartlett at UCL

Jacqui is Chair in Construction Management, at The Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, in University College London and Vice Dean Research for the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment. She has published over 150 papers, managed more than £10M of funding for R&D in construction, and supervised more than 20 doctoral students to completion. Her research spans materials and products as well as innovation and sustainability. Current collaborations focus on the UK’s Transforming Construction programme, including studies of business model innovations and autonomous robotics – Jacqui was PI of the Transforming Construction Network Plus from 2018-2021. Her most recent activities include leading the Bartlett’s submission to REF2021 and serving on international review panels at ETH Zurich, Georgia Tech and the University of Florida.

Hanna Rutanen
SVP Communications, KONE

Hanna Rutanen leads KONE’s global communications function and has served as a communications leader at the company for more than 10 years. Hanna has a crucial vantage point over the global operating environment for urbanization and sustainability in the built environment. She has a strong background in crisis and media communications and communications coaching, and today her passions are related to the development of a diverse and inclusive work environment and culture, and how communications can effect change, to create value for the company. Before her career at KONE, Hanna worked for several years as a leading communications consultant and account manager for communications agencies.

Matt Wheelis
SVP of Strategy, Build and Construct Division, Nemetschek
Matt Wheelis leads global strategy for the Build and Construct Division of the Nemetschek Group. His responsibilities include strategy formation, industry advocacy, partnership development, GTM strategy, and M&A roadmapping. A veteran of the construction technology industry, his accomplishments include establishing job cost control in the cloud and advancing multiple SaaS / Cloud, mobile, geospatial and BIM solutions for construction. After studying accounting and civil engineering, he began his career on the construction site and has enjoyed participating in the explosion of construction-related information technology throughout his career. Matt’s areas of focus in the industry with Nemetschek Group include construction management, collaboration, and all things related to the business of contracting. In addition to his professional accomplishments, Matt is passionate about making a positive impact in the community through volunteering and charitable work.
Fred Mills
Founder and MD, The B1M

Having worked with a leading UK contractor, Fred founded The B1M to focus on sharing "the best of construction" - improving the industry while helping to attract more people to come and work in it. Fred has since grown The B1M into the world’s largest and most subscribed-to video channel for construction with over 2.9 million YouTube subscribers and 24 million viewers each month. It now employs a 17-strong team across London, Sydney and New York. The B1M has been named by The Times as one of the 20 best educational YouTube channels in the world. From interviewing Sir Richard Branson to filming inside London's Big Ben, Fred’s videos have amassed hundreds of millions of views making him a global figure in video publishing and a role model to millions of people interested or already working in construction. Fred’s mission is to change the perception of construction on planet Earth.