The fine art of roofing

HUGE sections of temporary roofing are being put in place to protect the fire-damaged Mackintosh building at Glasgow School of Art before the onset of winter.

The work is being carried out by one of the biggest scaffolding companies in the country.

SGB has spent the past few weeks putting specially designed scaffolding in place around the historic building.

Project manager John Watson said: "It is a unique design for a unique building.

"Our inhouse design engineer Chris Rogers came up with a scheme that caused minimal damage to the fabric of the listed building.

"The scaffolding had to be attached to the actual building, so that was quite a challenge.

"Chris also had to design scaffolding ties which are unique to this project, so there are a lot of firsts."

Once the scaffolding was in place, a 75 tonne crane was brought in to start the delicate job of lifting temporary roof panels into place.

The three sections of the fire damaged roof are all a different design so 12 individual panels had to be designed and constructed to ensure the building is kept watertight.

Each roof section is 5m wide, 30m long and weigh between 1.2 and 1.8 tonnes.

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The fine art of roofing