Perfect timing at major construction site in Hamburg's HafenCity

Cities by the water always exude a special flair - Hamburg is nevertheless something special for the outsider, because this city seems to be constantly reinventing itself without abandoning its old roots. Speicherstadt and the Elbphilharmonie concert hall in HafenCity are good examples. A new prestigious building is currently rising up into the sky at Strandkai, visible from afar: 476 luxury flats, restaurants and business premises in a state-of-the-art ensemble of buildings are to be ready for occupation this year.

In the first construction phase, the company responsible for the scaffolding work, B + P Gerüstbau Hamburg GmbH from Seevetal, used 10,000 m² of RUX-SUPER 65 facade scaffolding for the shell construction and SUPER 100 for the facade work on this 14,000 m² construction site with a total of four construction fields. In the meantime, the two tower buildings with heights of up to 60 m have also been scaffolded, so that 30,000 m² of SUPER facade scaffolding from the Hagen-based manufacturer Scafom-rux are in use. A special feature of this project was the procedure: B + P's scaffolding had to be continuously increased in parallel to the growing shells; in the case of the most recently completed tower with the illustrious names "The Crown" and "Fifty-9" high-rises up to a height of 60 m. Once a floor slab had been completed on site, the next scaffolding layer had to be assembled just in time so that the corresponding fall protection was immediately available. Special feature number 2: There was no intermediate storage facility for scaffolding material. The material was delivered, unloaded and immediately distributed to the places of use and erected - almost before the driver could even turn around and leave the construction site. The tight schedule naturally required close coordination between all the companies involved in the construction. They met once a week in person and twice a week via video meeting to ensure that nothing was left to chance and that the target date could be met.

Some things, however, cannot be planned - even if it is a storm that sweeps across the port of Hamburg at speeds of up to 170 km/h. But here, too, B + P was prepared. All anchorages and static calculations were of course designed for the higher wind loads that have to be taken into account, especially in northern Germany. Only a few nets had been damaged and were promptly repaired. Things got even more exciting when the steel frame that gives the building its name "The Crown", in that it can be interpreted as a stylised crown, had to be set in order to prevent the formation of potentially falling ice floes. Here, the B + P professionals climbed to the very top in height safety harnesses to successfully defuse the situation.

Sophisticated logistics, competent planning by the in-house technical office and perfect interlocking of all the companies involved right up to completion on schedule: construction sites that run like clockwork despite the odd imponderable are always fascinating, even for the experienced B + P managing director Markus Eßing. Last but not least, he also had high praise for the RUX-SUPER scaffolding system used; it proved to be ideal for a demanding large construction site of this kind due to its robustness and technical features including self-aligning erection.

B + P Hamburg is part of the BPG Building Partners group, which is responsible for scaffolding and construction logistics with over 400 employees. Operating nationwide, the company is considered one of the largest scaffolders and construction logistics providers in Germany. The group includes B + P Gerüstbau Hamburg GmbH, B + P Gerüstbau GmbH, BSB Bau- und Spezialgerüstbau GmbH, Gustav RAETZ Gerüstbau GmbH, GSB Gerüstbau GmbH and LoXite GmbH.

The client for the project in Hamburg was KoHa Bauausführung und Immobilien GmbH from Berlin, which in turn acted on behalf of DC Developments GmbH & Co. KG, Hamburg for the construction of the shell buildings.