Scaffolding
The All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) at Wimbledon is the world famous venue for the annual Wimbledon Tennis Championships and the home of British tennis. As part of a wider upgrade, Knight Harwood is building two state-of-the-art new buildings that will deliver world-leading media and editing facilities for broadcasters attending the Championships.
The project involves demolition of the existing Media Centre and construction of a new Media Pavilion. A new Technical Services Room (TSR) will also be constructed above an existing structure, using lightweight glulam and CLT materials. All work will be carried out in a live environment, without disruption to surrounding facilities and it must be completed within a mission critical deadline, in time for the world’s media to report from the Championship.
Millcroft was contracted to provide access, safety and scaffolding services for both the demolition and construction phases.
The Solution from Millcroft
For the demolition phase, Millcroft designed and erected access scaffolding to enable demolition to be carried out by hand. This involved an external scaffold, birdcage crash decks, access scaffolding to the staircases and lift shafts and a temporary roof. The project also required extensive temporary handrails and edge protection. Millcroft worked closely with the client to align adaptations to access and health and safety requirements in real time as the programme progressed, with more than 20 adaptations implemented during the demolition phase.
For the construction phase, a different approach to the scaffolding project was required for each building, due to differences in the construction method and materials.
For the Media Pavilion, which is of steel frame construction, Millcroft’s remit was to design and install an external access scaffold to enable installation of cladding and brickwork, along with an internal scaffold for blockwork installation, and edge protection for the perimeter of the slabs and the roof.
For the TSR building, the scaffolding had to be erected prior to construction of the glulam and CLT structure to enable installation of the timber frame.
The design for the two buildings includes a link structure between the Media Pavilion and the TSR building, and the design for the scaffolding needed to incorporate cut out sections where this bridge will be built.
All requirements were designed in-house by Millcroft’s scaffolding engineers, and all site operatives had to abide by strict security protocols for the high-profile site, with 4-8 operatives involved at any one time throughout the programme.