Nominations BeNeLux Steel Bridge Contest 2025
From a total of 49 entries, a six-member expert jury chaired by Gerhard Nijenhuis (ipv Delft), nominated ten projects for the BeNeLux Steel Bridge Contest 2025.
Infosteel and Building with Steel organized the biennial award for the second time this year.
On Wednesday, Oct. 29, judges judged thirteen projects in Category A - Traffic Bridges, and thirty-six projects in Category B - Bicycle and Pedestrian Bridges. The projects were divided among four regions: Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and International.
The winners will be announced on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, from 1:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the LEF Future Center of the Dutch Department of Public Works in Utrecht.
Nominations Category A - Road Bridges:
© Hollandia.
Nominations Category B - Bicycle and pedestrian bridges:
Target
Every two years, Infosteel (B) and Bouwen met Staal (NL) organize the BeNeLux Steel Bridge Contest to highlight recently completed, exemplary bridge projects. And thus make clients, architects, structural engineers, steel builders and other project partners enthusiastic for (intelligent) applications of steel and steel-concrete in infrastructure and specifically bridges, movable or non-movable.
Participation
Participation in the 2025 edition of the award was possible with bridges whose construction was completed or put into service in 2023, 2024 or 2025. Participation was also open to projects outside the Benelux, under the condition that at least one of the project partners was from Belgium, the Netherlands or Luxembourg.
Criteria
The jury awarded the nominations after evaluating all entries against the criteria:
- concept: design principles, creativity and inventiveness;
- context: incorporation of the steel structure into the environment and its relationship with other building components;
- method: material use, production method in design, execution and detailing, and process (corridor);
- performance: environmental impact, sustainability measures, maintenance reduction and reuse/recycling opportunities.
Jury
The Jury BeNeLux Steel Bridge Contest 2025 consists of:
- Frédéric de Oliveira, Ministère de la Mobilité et des Travaux publics, Administration des ponts et chaussées, Division des Ouvrages d'Art, Luxembourg (LU);
- Wim Hoeckman, engineer-architect, em.prof. Vrije Universiteit Brussel, independent expert/consultant, Ghent (BE);
- Gerhard Nijenhuis (jury chairman), founder, director and designer, ipv Delft (NL)
- Juan Pablo Palau Hernandez, scientific innovator, TNO, Delft (NL)
- Jeroen Seinen, technical manager research program Replacement and Renovation, Rijkswaterstaat, Utrecht (NL)
- Lief Vanspringel, program manager The Flemish Waterway, Willebroek (BE)
Collaboration
The BeNeLux Steel Bridge Contest is one of the first tangible partnerships between Infosteel and Building with Steel, which should lead to economies of scale in knowledge dissemination. Thus, the editors of both organizations also exchange articles from their eponymous journals for uniform dissemination.
