There is evidence that scaffolding has been used for thousands of years with sockets in the walls around the Palaeolithic cave paintings at Lascaux suggesting that a form of scaffolding was used to complete the paintings on the ceiling around 17,000 years ago. Since then there have been many different variations and forms of scaffolding invented and used for a whole multitude of purposes. In the far-east it is still common to see bamboo scaffolding secured and connected with twine, whilst in the western world it is predominantly aluminium tubes.
When you go to any major city in the world it is highly likely that you will encounter scaffolding at some point during your visit. It is most common around buildings, giving contractors a safe and easy way to access higher sections of a building with all the equipment they need. Scaffolding is not however restricted to the building trade, the versatility of it�s design means it can be applied to almost any field. Below we take a look at four of our favourite uses of this common-yet-versatile construction method.
Ski Ramp
As part of the preparations for the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014, the Russian government decided to promote it with the construction of the largest temporary ski ramp. At a length of 150m and a height 56m this was a phenomenal structure. There was also 1000kg/m2 of Siberian snow brought in by over 100 trucks. With this weight demand and the strong winds that are prevalent in the Moscow winter, the scaffolding used had to be strong and be able to withstand these constant pressures. Scaffolding was therefor an obvious choice as it can built in such a way to withstand these conditions.
Stadium Seating
Throughout the world sport is one of the most important things in people�s lives. There are some incredible stadiums throughout the world and each new stadium pushes the limits of design and construction capabilities. For some events though there is no need to have permanent stands, an example of this is the British Open in golf. This event moves course every year and it may be that a course will only host the event once every five or ten years. Because of the sporadic nature of hosting the major events a temporary stand is the most sensible option to meet the needs of the public and spectators, whilst maintaining access to the courses throughout the rest of the year. These temporary stands are constructed with scaffolding and complemented with rows of seating and solid flooring and stands.
Stage sets/staging
Scaffolding is useful in the construction of both staging and sets for both the stage and the movies. When there is not access to a theatre with a permanent stage, or you need to build a stage for a major event, scaffolding is the obvious choice for the construction. There are a few different variations of scaffolding based stages, you can either build a stage with the standard form of aluminium tubing or there is custom built forms of staging based on the scaffold concept. You will see scaffolding based staging in most places, this could be at a major festival or even a local fete.
Temporary buildings
One of our favourite uses of scaffolding is creating temporary structures and buildings from it. These are generally a series of scaffolding towers to build a frame and roof of a building which is then covered in either a solid waterproof fabric, or a tin cladding. For large events these can create quite a unique space to host and entertain guests.
Scaffolding has endless possibilities and can be considered similar to a large scale Meccano set. With some ingenuity in design you can turn these aluminium tube and connector systems into unique and varied structures. Since it�s inception thousands of years ago the uses have become more and more varied and transformed a huge number of industries.
Article provided by Mike James, an independent content writer in the property industry working alongside a selection of companies including revolutionary scaffolding company Precipitous, who were consulted over the information in this piece.
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