After having made a positive imprint through its Regional Conferences held in Chennai and Delhi earlier in the year, MX Business Media held the grand finale of its STEEL CONSTRUCTION SUMMIT series in Mumbai last month.
The event was strategically termed as ‘STEEL DAY 2016’ having the revolutionary theme: ‘Faster Execution With Steel’. This mega gathering ambitiously aimed to bring together bright minds to give talks that are idea-focused, and on a wide range of subjects, to foster learning, inspire and wonder, and most importantly – provoke conversations that matter. And that’s precisely the reason why it was termed as STEEL DAY.
STEEL DAY 2016 was held on 28th September 2016 at Hotel Sahara Star in the suburbs of Mumbai, located well within the vicinity of the Mumbai International Airport.
The event was supported by some of the biggest brands involved in steel construction today:
- Diamond Partner
L&T Construction
- Gold Partners
Bentley Systems Inc.
Jindal Steel & Power Ltd.
Tata Structura
- Silver Partners
AVEVA
Everest Industries Ltd.
Kirby Building Systems(I) Ltd.
Volta Green Structures
Steel Structures & Metal Buildings was the exclusive Media Partner covering this mega event. Through some inspiring presentations and interactions, the event was a highly rewarding one for all the audience who were a part of it.
Panel of Intellectuals
After the welcoming and felicitation session, the business end of the day kicked-off with the most attractive session – the high-profile Panel Discussion of Architects having the theme: Designer’s Dilemma.
The astute panel consisted of some of the renowned Architects from the industry with a proven track record in ideating some of the best projects out of steel. These were:
- Ratan Batliboi – Principal, Ratan J. Batliboi Consultants Pvt. Ltd.
- Viren Brahmbhatt – Principal, de.Sign Studio LLC
- Arjun Malik – Principal, Malik Architecture
- Anupam De, Principal, Anupam De & Associates
- Jay Shah, Director, Access Architects
- Kalhan Mattoo, Principal, Planet 3 Studios Architecture Pvt. Ltd.
The moderator controlling the discussion of this elite group of Architects was Ruchir Panwar, Business Head – Build Solution, Mahindra Susten Pvt. Ltd. who wisely touched upon all the grey areas that every architect would co-relate with, if he has worked in steel.
The session was indeed the highlight of the day wherein all the Architects deliberated upon their rich affair with steel, and had a healthy debate on the real-time dilemma’s faced by the designers today. There were many issues that were surfaced during their knowledgeable talk, which was well noted and appreciated by the industry as well.
Two Tracks Running In Tandem
The conclusion of the panel discussion opened gates for two seperate tracks running parallely to each other for the rest of the day, allowing the audience to listen to the speaker of their choice. The audience were kind of spoilt for choices, as each session witnessed speakers at par with each other, and most importantly, kept the audience deeply involved.
The parallel tracks were segregated evenly as Track- I and Track – II, with 12 speakers in Track – I and 9 speakers in Track – II, whilst the last session of Track – II witnessing another action-packed panel discussion, this time, meant for developers and consultants with another interesting topic. Overall, STEEL DAY 2016 witnessed 22 speakers, 12 panelists, more than 100 CXOs, and around 200 delegates altogether, living up with the expectations of a STEEL DAY affair.
TRACK – I
The Track – I started with a bang, with the go-to-man of L&T ECC – K. Veerappan, Vice President & Head of Design Department for Residential & Factory Projects stretching on the effective use of steel in Buildings & Infra Projects, bringing in a different perspective altogether and projecting the real significance of steel. This was followed by Jayesh Hariyani, Senior Principal & CMD of INI Group, wherein he shared with the audience few of the iconic steel projects designed by him, which transformed the design practices of our country.
During his presentation, Akshit Dhawan, Consultant – Structural, Bentley Systems Inc. Presses upon the technology to speed up design engineering construction of steel buildings, which gave the audience something new to take home. He was followed by Kaushik Dutta, Associate Principal, Thornton Tomasetti, a man with an experience of international and national markets, highlighting the innovative way of construction of one-floor at a time.
Post lunch, Anil Hira, Regional Director & Partner – India, Buro Happold Engineering took centre-stage in displaying how steel is efficiently been used in tall buildings in todays modern-day era across thye globe. He was followed by a man with an intent to explore the vast potential of light gauge steel frame industry in our country, Anand Pillay, DGM – Sales & Marketing, Everest Industries Limited whose presentation was all about challenging the convention, which was gladly appreciated by the audience.
Next up was Richard Brotherton, Senior Vice President Sales – Structural Fabrication, AVEVA who is on a mission to modernize the fabrication technology at a global level, and very rightly, threw light on the future of steel construction. He was followed by an IITan with immense knowledge on structures, Siddhartha Ghosh, Professor, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, wherein he touched upon the Challenges in Connection Design and Detailing, a subject very close to the engineers attending the event.
The penultimate session was signed off by Hariom Gera, Managing Director, Constructure Designs Pvt. Ltd., a man with 5 million sq. mtrs. of composite construction in his kitty, dwelling upon economy in faster construction of high rise buildings, which was perfectly fitting in with the theme of the day.
Post break, the new session was jointly-presented by the dynamic duo of Nitin Killawala, Director, Group Seven Architects & Planners Pvt. Ltd. and Nikhil Shanghvi, CEO, Shanghvi & Associates Consultants Pvt. Ltd. who decoded the innovative use of steel in a residential building. This was followed by an architect with creative imaginations, Vivek Bhole, Founder & Principal Architect, Neo Modern Architects, who presentation was all about the aesthetics of structural steel.
And finally, signing off the track in style was Parish Kapse, Director, Team One Architects whose interesting topic for the day was Finishing of Steel Buildings: Pre Architectured Buildings, which eventually summed up the pattern of the day as far as Track – I is concerned. It was indeed a high-intensity knowledge sharing day for all the delegates as well as the speakers. All that a speaker needs from the audeince is the right signals, and here, the audience were as polished and receptive as one could have wished for.
TRACK – II
Whilst Track – I was highly interesting, the second track was not left behind either, and gave the audience all the more reasons to stick to the track. The man with a mission to make construction lighter, faster & affordable, Niladri Sarkar, CEO, Construction Solutions Business of Jindal Steel & Power Ltd. started the Track – II with a bang. He was ably followed by Viren Brahmbhatt, Principal, de.Sign Studio LLC, an architect thriving to challenge the conventional and thinking beyond the predictable, who emphasized on the history and the future present of steel.
Next up was Dr. Vinod Jain, Managing Director, Vintech Consultants whose topic was on design of multi-storey steel structures: Challenges, industrial practice and solutions, wherein he shared the nitty-gritties of multi-storeyed buildings from structural point of view. The next presenter is Prof. Charanjit Shah, Founding Principal, Creative Group who dwelled upon visualising beyond imagination lensing through use of steel – in mega structures.
Post lunch, Vivek Rathore, Principal Architect, Salient Design Studio showered the audience with his unique style with an interesting topic – Man: Steel: Earth – A Relationship Model for Future, which was all about innovations. He was followed by P. V. Mohan, Director – Commercial, Kirby Building Systems who delivered on the trends & challenges in pre-engineered buildings in the current scenario.
A highly techno-driven architect of today’s time, Jay Shah, Director, Access Architects came up with a very interesting topic – Steel v/s Concrete Construction: Can Genghis Khan help us decide? which truly was the highlight of the track. This was followed by Amod Barve, CEO, Volta Green Structures who took the audience through the Emerging Trend of Rapid Steel Construction. And to sign-off the session, Snehashis Sinha, Chief of Sinha & Associates deliberated on the use of steel hollow section in building construction.
Although this concluded the individual presentations for the day, but, the second panel discussion was yet to trigger. And that is precisely what was delivered amidst the intense discussion upon a very healthy topic: Do’s & Dont’s In Steel Construction.
The panel included some of the well-known technocrats from a variety of segments of steel construction were:
- Dipti Talim – Structural Head, K. Raheja Corporation
- D. Raju – Managing Director, Kirby Building Systems Pvt. Ltd.
- K. Veerappan – VP-EDRC, L&T ECC
- Sundar Rajan Tatachar – Head of Project Developments, Shree Naman Group
- Hiten Mahimtura – Director, Mahimtura Consultants Pvt. Ltd.
- Manik Jethi – Director, Technical Projects Consultants Pvt. Ltd.
The moderator for this session was Avneet Singh, Editor-in-Chief, MX Business Media who managed to create a memorable discussion which was worth witnessingh.
To sum it up, it was indeed a monumental day for the steel construction professionals. Where else they could have seen such a huge gathering of like-minded intellectuals all under one roof. It can happen only during STEEL DAY, and make no mistake, it is getting better and better every passiong year. And in all probablities, next year will surely raise the bar, yet again, as has been this year.
