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The brick building with an 8 story tower, is the first new building on the Palace grounds for 200 years. It was to become home to an unrivalled collection of historical books and manuscripts documenting over 1000 years of Great British history.
GKR Scaffolding was engaged by Knight Harwood at an early stage to map a logistics strategy that supported the brickwork specialists and their access needs, effectively building each lift ahead of the bricklayers’ programme requirements.
GKR produced an erection and adaption sequence for the programme supported by full design, engineering and calculations.
The scaffolding was installed at each façade of the library with all materials accessed via 3 passenger hoists and 10kn hoist run offs that serviced every scaffold lift.
The scaffold was erected to a 4+3 board configuration and at 2.5m lift heights, allowing for the hoist to land at every scaffold lift.
This enabled the bricklayers to preload in advance of the laying gangs. Each scaffold lift was modified with a 3 board hop up bracket once the bricklayer had laid bricks up to 1.6m from the scaffold lift. The hop up bracket was then installed at this level and the inside boards from the lift above where removed.
Telescopic transoms could then slide in and an inside handrail, toe board and brick guard were fitted to the inside standards on the lift above. A ladder was provided every 16m for access down onto the hop up.
This process was repeated from ground to roof level, and once the bricklayer had passed through, the scaffold was then in place for the following trades.
The work also included:
• 8970m2 of 3kn bricklayers’ façade scaffold
• Three 2000kg passenger/goods hoists with 3 x 10KN hoist run offs
• 52m of 10KN storage gantry for bricks and mortar, unloaded via a 2000kg lifting beam to Lambeth Place Road
• Three full height Haki staircases
• 460m Niko lifting beams for lifting in Bricklayers’ shelve angles
• Handrails to all new staircases, and riser and lift openings
• Internal birdcages to plantrooms and double height spaces
• 20m welfare gantry for drying rooms, toilet, canteen and offices
The phased sequence of works allowed brickwork to be completed as the scaffold progressed, condensing programme time.
Including GKR early in the planning of logistics and design, enabled the access requirements of following trades to be accommodated with minimum adaptions, benefitting both the operational and commercial efficacy of the project.
