Awash Insurance has begun a process to erect a 30-storey headquarters in Addis Abeba's fast-growing financial district with a selection of architectural designs.

The headquarters is to sprawl on 3,870sqm of land in Senga Tera, Lideta District. It will serve as a corporate office when completed, incorporating five basements. Construction is projected to cost three billion Birr. However, the projected cost may escalate with the rapid price hikes observed in the construction materials and inputs market. Non-food inflation registered at 22.9pc last month, according to the Ethiopian Statistics Service. Retail prices for a quintal of cement hit 1,000 Br last week.

A growing workforce led the insurance firm to decide to finance a new headquarters, disclosed Gudissa Legesse, chief executive officer (CEO) of Awash Insurance. The insurer has been sharing an 18-storey twin-tower in the financial district with Awash Bank for the past 12 years. Over 200 employees work at its head office, which also houses its main branch. The 25-year-old Awash Insurance operates through 51 branches and eight contact offices.

Developed by S7 Architects & Engineers, a local firm in business for 16 years, the design was chosen from 13 submitted for a contest. Gudissa announced the decision last week at Elilly Hotel, in the Kazanchis area. Twenty-one architecture firms responded to Awash Insurance's call for the design competition. A jury of five reviewed the submission for a month and selected six finalists before putting the final decision down to a vote.

"The selection process was fair," said Adugna Degefa, a member of the jury and an architect and urban planner with 30 years of experience.

The evaluation and selection method used was quality-based selection (QBS). It contrasts the price-based selection methodology most often employed in Ethiopia while evaluating an architectural design. It entailed selecting an architectural design and developing the final design and engineering works, including cost estimates and preparing bid documents for construction, contract administration, and on-site supervision.

Although cost is an important consideration, experts say it is only one of many measures.

Haben Abraha, a construction engineer with over a decade of experience, believes quality-based evaluation and selection methods allow for a transparent process and ensure that no undue influences have occurred in the selection process.

“However, quality-based selection methods might escalate the construction cost if the materials are expensive and elegant,” warns the expert.

For a company with 754.9 million Br in paid-up capital, Awash Insurance considered the design's structural, economic, and aesthetic value. Health and environmental safety issues matter when making the decision, according to Wondemagegne Zewdu, the building project manager.