Bamboo scaffolding, Hong Kong – 竹脚手架, 香港

Besides its inherent symbolism, bamboo has long been used as a construction material in Asia: it is durable and strong, reusable, it can withstand large amounts of weight being lightweight itself. So using bamboo scaffolding for any kind of construction work was something that came up naturally.

Bamboo can also be cut and “tailored” to suit any shape or purpose, as it takes very little time to assemble. It is light, easy to move to other sites and no machinery is required to assemble the entire framework, just a knot. And maybe the most important point is that bamboo can easily be recycled and reused for another project, it’s just untie the knots and pile the poles up:

But all this is nothing new in Hong Kong, where bamboo is widely used in any construction since long time ago, not only for all those special characteristics, but also for being largely available all over the neighbouring mainland for a small fraction of the price of equivalent in steel scaffold.

The entire framework is made of bamboo poles

Truss-out style scaffolding is normally used for minor works on facades and structures, where it is not practical to raise a full scaffold structure supported on the ground, and rests on the building for support, as seen in here: