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St. Ludwig´s Church, Darmstadt, Germany
Mobile working scaffold saves on long re-erection times
The Catholic church of St. Ludwig in Darmstadt was built in classical style and modelled on the Pantheon in Rome. The dome itself rises to a height of 35 metres.
Scaffolding was required for renovation work on the windowless, circular cupola which has a diameter of 43 m. The walls had to be treated in order to improve the acoustics through the addition of soundproof materials followed by re-painting. This is a continuation of the re-construction and restoration work that has gone on for many years after the church was destroyed during the Second World War.
The dome rests on 28 columns and, due to the construction comprising of steel lattice girders, is divided into eight segments which are visible in the interior through the lower chords of the steel girders.
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PERI UP Rosett
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Each segment should be completely scaffolded so that the painting work on the dome can be carried out by the small team of artists without any interruptions. In spite of the renovation work, normal church activities should still take place including the most important events on the church calendar such as Christmas and Easter.
Because of these requirements, erection of a birdcage scaffold was out of the question. PERI engineers in Weissenhorn decided in favour of a mobile working scaffold which pivoted around the centre of the dome.
A 11.50 m high scaffold tower consisting of PERI UP Rosett was erected in the middle of the room (German Institute of Civil Engineering approved, Z-8.22-863). This modular scaffold system is characterised by its particularly rigid and high load-bearing nodes as well as easy and safe assembly. The shape of the ledger end and rosette node allows the wedge to drop by gravity into the rosette hole and immediately lock in position. The bracing is connected to the ledgers by a gravity pin without the need of any tools.
Inside the circle of columns, two slender scaffold towers were erected which fitted exactly the space between the rows of pews. A 6.00 m wide and 15.00 m long platform was formed using a lattice framework system which freely spanned the dome. The centre bearing was carried on a shoring tower with a rotating assembly.
The lattice framework was constructed using standard components taken from the PERI LGS system which is compatible with the PERI UP Rosett modular system through the use of rosette nodes on the verticals. Assembly of the individual elements of the lattice girders and the bracing ledgers and diagonals was carried out from a scaffold that temporarily connected all the towers, and was then used later to extend the scaffold in the dome itself.
From this, the working scaffold could be assembled to a width of 12 m and brackets allowed adjustments to be made to match the curvature of the dome. At the top, cantilevered platforms were attached to individual areas so that the apex could be reached.
With this construction, all areas within the dome could be accessed. When work was finished in one segment, the complete scaffold was moved by means of rollers to the next section, this took less than two days. This meant that interruptions to the work schedule were kept to an absolute minimum.
The second segment, including painting was finished in time for Christmas 2004. The church parishioners were given the opportunity to get a good impression of the work already carried out on the almost finished dome as well as marvelling at the impressive scaffold construction complete with its delicate individual elements.
Rainer Cebulla, Architect, Diocese Building Authority in Mainz:
“We decided in favour of the customised solution from PERI because after each individual section is completed we can quickly move the scaffolding to the next dome segment. This means work stoppages on the dome are kept to an absolute minimum. The advantage of the mobile scaffold is that less area and materials are required so that regular church services can still be held.”
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Press Release May 2004
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