Ren­o­vat­ing the façade of an 80-metre build­ing in a coastal envi­ron­ment demands pre­cise plan­ning, seam­less logis­tics and uncom­pro­mis­ing site safe­ty.

When a ren­o­va­tion project reach­es excep­tion­al heights, scaffolding becomes far more than a stan­dard site require­ment. At Iilu­odon­tie 9 in Vuosaari, the façade ren­o­va­tion demon­strat­ed how demand­ing height-relat­ed chal­lenges can be solved through metic­u­lous plan­ning, robust tech­ni­cal solu­tions and smooth col­lab­o­ra­tion between expe­ri­enced part­ners. 

Suomen Laa­tu­sa­neer­aus Oy is a ren­o­va­tion con­trac­tor spe­cial­is­ing in façade, bal­cony and roof ren­o­va­tions. At Iilu­odon­tie 9, the com­pa­ny car­ried out a project to replace the seals in the balustrade glaz­ing across the building’s entire glass façade. The scaffolding sup­pli­er was select­ed through a com­pet­i­tive ten­der, with the aim of find­ing a part­ner with proven exper­tise in demand­ing high-rise projects. Suo­mi Teline was cho­sen for the project on the strength of this exper­tise. 

Solv­ing high-rise chal­lenges at 80 metres 

“The build­ing ris­es 96 metres above sea lev­el and stands 80 metres tall, which is three to four times high­er than a typ­i­cal apart­ment build­ing. At this height, scaffolding becomes sig­nif­i­cant­ly more demand­ing and has a major impact on both plan­ning and exe­cu­tion,” says Jus­tus Back, site man­ag­er and con­struc­tion super­vi­sor at Suomen Laa­tu­sa­neer­aus. 

The building’s coastal loca­tion and 80-metre height brought stronger winds, greater scaf­fold loads and unusu­al­ly demand­ing occu­pa­tion­al safe­ty require­ments. As a result, spe­cial atten­tion was giv­en to strength cal­cu­la­tions, struc­tur­al sta­bil­i­ty and safe work­ing con­di­tions from the out­set. 

Accord­ing to Back, wind con­di­tions affect­ed both mate­r­i­al lift­ing and scaf­fold assem­bly and dis­man­tling, mak­ing care­ful phas­ing and sched­ul­ing essen­tial. “The key dif­fer­ence com­pared with scaffolding on low­er build­ings was that two winch­es were need­ed to lift mate­ri­als and scaf­fold com­po­nents into place. The first winch was posi­tioned at 40 metres, where the com­po­nents were trans­ferred to a sec­ond winch for the upper sec­tions.” This stage proved espe­cial­ly sen­si­tive to wind. As antic­i­pat­ed, some assem­bly days were too windy for safe lift­ing, and work had to be post­poned until con­di­tions improved. Because the risk had been iden­ti­fied in advance, the sched­ule includ­ed the flex­i­bil­i­ty need­ed to keep the project on track. 

A sta­ble foun­da­tion for safe exe­cu­tion 

Suo­mi Teline pre­pared the scaffolding plans for the project and car­ried out the required strength cal­cu­la­tions. Before instal­la­tion began, the load-bear­ing capac­i­ty of the base was ver­i­fied and the nec­es­sary rein­force­ments were com­plet­ed. In total, the scaffolding solu­tions weighed near­ly 100 tonnes, which meant that the park­ing garage beneath the build­ing had to be care­ful­ly sup­port­ed before the ALFIX scaffolding could be erect­ed. 
 
Under Back’s super­vi­sion, Suomen Laa­tu­sa­neer­aus com­plet­ed the scaf­fold anchor­ing at the required points and rein­forced the park­ing garage beneath the build­ing based on Suo­mi Teline’s plans and pre­lim­i­nary data. Back high­lights the clar­i­ty of the instruc­tions and draw­ings pro­vid­ed for the foun­da­tion sup­port: “The scaf­fold weights were known, and the posi­tion of each leg had been marked cor­rect­ly in the draw­ings,” he says. 

This thor­ough ground­work cre­at­ed a safe, sta­ble foun­da­tion for the scaffolding and sup­port­ed suc­cess­ful exe­cu­tion through­out the ren­o­va­tion. 

Detailed logis­tics kept the site run­ning smooth­ly 

The tight con­struc­tion site placed addi­tion­al demands on mate­r­i­al stor­age and day-to-day logis­tics. “The goal was to keep the work mov­ing smooth­ly, min­imise dis­rup­tion to the sur­round­ings and ensure res­i­dents could con­tin­ue using the avail­able areas through­out the project,” says Back. Access to the com­mer­cial premis­es at street lev­el was also main­tained with a tem­po­rary pedes­tri­an tun­nel built for the dura­tion of the works. 

 Suo­mi Teline defined the safe­ty zone required for the project, sup­plied the scaffolding and man­aged the relat­ed logis­tics, as well as car­ry­ing out both assem­bly and dis­man­tling. Suomen Laa­tu­sa­neer­aus took care of the main contractor’s respon­si­bil­i­ties and the foun­da­tion sup­port required for the scaffolding. To pre­vent unau­tho­rised access, the com­pa­ny also enclosed the area with ply­wood and arranged sur­veil­lance for the site. 

The com­plet­ed scaffolding solu­tion at Iilu­odon­tie 9 enabled a full-façade ren­o­va­tion to be car­ried out safe­ly at excep­tion­al height.

Expert col­lab­o­ra­tion deliv­ered a safe, reli­able result 

In com­plex ren­o­va­tion projects, suc­cess depends on care­ful plan­ning, close coop­er­a­tion between sup­pli­ers and the exper­tise of expe­ri­enced pro­fes­sion­als. At Iilu­odon­tie 9, Suo­mi Teline’s high-qual­i­ty, durable ALFIX scaffolding solu­tions enabled the ren­o­va­tion to be com­plet­ed safe­ly and effi­cient­ly despite the demand­ing con­di­tions. 

 
“We received clear plans and cal­cu­la­tions for every­thing the project required. The scaf­fold weights were spec­i­fied pre­cise­ly, so we knew how to sup­port the struc­ture from below. Suo­mi Teline had also defined the safe­ty zone, which made our own work eas­i­er,” Back says. 

The result was a safe, func­tion­al and reli­able scaffolding solu­tion tai­lored to the spe­cif­ic demands of a high-rise coastal site. 

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