SGB scaffolding sensitive to architecture

SGB has supplied scaffolding for a £136 million refurbishment project on historic railway building around London's Kings Cross Station.

SGB's customer, BAM Construction is refurbishing the Eastern Goods Yard, including the Grade II listed (subject to certain protections) Transit Sheds and Granary Building. It is phase one of a £2 billion regeneration scheme in the area, which will see the 27 ha site being transformed into a new community providing homes, offices, shops and amenity areas.

BAM approached SGB at an early stage of the design process: the scaffolding requirements were extensive and needed to be robust - rising to 10 levels is places. However, in order to avoid unnecessary damage to the listed structures, SGB had to find a way of tying the scaffold into the building without drilling into the brickwork.

Bob Morris, contracts manager at SGB said, "As we couldn't drill through the walls, we used the window openings to help us tie the scaffolding to the building," all the windows were to be replaced in the restoration. "Basically, we've put a tie through the window and held it in place with a beam across the back."

SGB has supplied its Cuplok system scaffold, with wide, eight-board, decks to provide ample space for the contractor's operatives. The absence of diagonal bracing ensures there are no obstacles to hamper the restoration work.

To ensure stability of the scaffold on the Transit Sheds, SGB suspended a series of one-tonne ballast bags from node points on the Cuplok scaffold, removing the need to rely on mechanical fixings to the building. The bags also served as an environmentally efficient way of storing the crushed masonry that the refurbishment works created. Instead of increasing site traffic by removing the material, it will be re-used as aggregate on another part of the site once its use as scaffold weights is complete.

BAM is also replacing the Granary Building's original dual-pitch roof. Here, SGB has erected its Coverspan temporary roof system to provide a sheltered environment for the contractor. So that the roof did not interfere with the original structure the Coverspan frame is attached directly to the scaffolding. "The roof was designed at tender stage and SGB only had to modify it slightly for this project" said BAM's construction manager, David Stephenson.