1,100 tons of temporary auxiliary structures for Sluishuis Amsterdam

Sluishuis is not only an iconic project and enrichment of Amsterdam IJburg, but also a beautiful new business card for Matemco Hulpconstructies. Indeed, during the realization of the special residential building, the complete services and extensive range of the scaffolding and support specialist from Ede will come into their own.

Commissioned by construction combination Sluishuis (VORM Bouw/BESIX), Matemco Hulpconstructies designed, calculated and delivered a large part of the facade scaffolding and floor supports. "Most special and challenging is the support scaffolding under the cantilever," says project leader Jos Hendriks. "To properly accommodate the high loads of the cantilever as well as the settlements of the building, we supplied over 300 tons of support material."

High upright loads up to 75 kN

The cantilever scaffolds belong to the multi-purpose Kwik Scaffold System of Matemco Auxiliary Structures, within which high upright loads (up to 75 kN) are permissible. The components have a higher steel quality (S355) and greater wall thickness of the scaffold tube, making them considerably stronger and universally applicable. Moreover, the height of the support in principle does not affect the permissible scaffold load. "This enables us to put together the support structure with a minimum of uprights, resulting in optimum safety and lower assembly costs."

Mercury scaffolding system

The Kwik scaffolding system is a stand-alone system with uprights, which are interconnected with (strut) links into which the struts can be easily clicked. Once again, this allows significant savings in assembly times. "Within the range we differentiate between three solutions: Kwiksteiger Support, Kwiksteiger Decking and Kwiksteiger Facade Scaffolding, in which a large part of the components are interchangeable. All three variants are used in Sluishuis. Where Kwiksteiger Support supports the cantilever, over 350 tons of Kwiksteiger Facade Scaffolding ensures that the mechanics on site can easily install their window frames, facade insulation, cladding, et cetera."

Initially, the balconies seemed to create dimensional challenges, Hendriks says. "But because our range includes 2.20-meter uprights, we were able to overcome this perfectly. And even in the box dimensions, we ended up with our materials in exactly the right positions."

1,100 tons of material

For the basements and points of the apartment floors on the sloped walls, Matemco supplied Auxiliary Construction Kwiksteiger Decking. This system features drop heads, supports and child beams. Thanks to the drop head, beam and floor formwork can be easily made and efficiently reused. The assembly of all facade scaffolding and floor supports was provided by regular partner Scaffold Construction Monty. A total of 1,100 tons of temporary auxiliary structures were involved, half of which have now been returned to the warehouse. The last scaffolding will be taken down at the end of January.  

Matemco Auxiliary Structures, part of Otri Group
Since last summer, Matemco Hulpconstructies has belonged to the Otri Group, which also includes Jako and Yelloo Group. Joining forces has not only created a one-stop-shop for formwork systems, temporary support structures, passenger and freight elevators, modular suspended platforms, hardware and tools, but also a strong foundation for the future.