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Mercedes-Benz Museum, Stuttgart, Germany
Unrivalled formwork technology
On 20th May 2006, shortly before the start of the World Cup in Germany, the DaimlerChrysler Corporation opened the doors of the new Mercedes- Benz Museum – thus officially welcoming its visitors from all around the world. The opening ceremony was held the previous evening as part of a gala with 1,500 invited guests.
With an impressive height of 48 metres, the museum is constructed on a 6 m high manmade elevation directly before the gates of the main plant in Stuttgart-Untertürkheim. The museum itself only occupies 3,500 m² of the total 60,000 m² site area. However, the architecturally striking building has an exhibition area of almost 17,000 m² and provides sufficient space for a journey through the past, present and future of the automobile with the world-famous star.
The team from UN studio ben van berkel & caroline bos, Amsterdam, were awarded the contract and the foundation stone for this unique structure was laid on 17th September 2003. Eighteen months later, in March 2005, the concrete shell for the four sections containing the museum, building technology, connecting building and arena as well as the multi-storey car park was completed.
Visitors are brought to the top of the building by elevators where two spiral walkways wind their way downwards providing easy and comfortable access to the Myth and Collection exhibition areas. 160 vehicles and various other collections can be viewed on a total of nine levels.
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| PERI Systems In Use |
HD 200 Heavy Duty Prop
MULTIPROP Slab prop
PERI UP Rosett
RUNDFLEX Circular Wall Formwork
SB Brace Frame
ST 100 Stacking Tower
TRIO
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The team of supervisors is of one opinion:
“Construction of this difficult building whilst under enormous time pressure is a unique achievement. The complicated PERI formwork units could be handled like system formwork and we could achieve excellent concrete surface results. Naturally, we are very proud to have mastered this tremendous challenge together with PERI.”
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Building concept and procedure
The design by the Dutch architect, Ben van Berkel, avoids the use of corners and edges to a large extent as it is based on a doublehelix (helix = twist, spiral). From the very beginning, this unusual structure was considered as a difficult challenge for the contractors and, in particular, for the formwork technology. Availability, operational planning and delivery of the large quantities of materials required during the project and, above all, the realization of the complicated element geometry compelled the consortium – for ensuring the most economical solution possible – to find a competent and efficient formwork and scaffolding partner.
As a result, formwork experts from PERI were involved in the tendering phase so that full advantage could be taken of the expertise of the experienced PERI engineers. In socalled process groups, implementable construction procedures for the Twist and Myth segments were developed and perfected in weekly meetings over the course of four months. The insights gained here found their way into the 3D construction planning which the PERI specialists used for production of the formwork elements. The practicability could be proven on the basis of mock up pours. These extremely large structures, up to eleven metres high and eight metres long, were made for both the Twist and Myth areas.
The team of architects used the different versions of possible concrete surfaces achieved here for deciding which formwork concept should finally be utilised as well as what type of surface should be realised. At the same time, the 3D data – already provided by the architects for the extensive special formwork construction – was checked to see whether it could be continued to be used reliably. |
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Unsurpassed special
formwork construction
Due to the special characteristics of the required component shapes, the numerous twisted surfaces were realised using elements from PERI’s assembly facilities. The basis for the difficult production of the 3D formwork units were PERI VARIO standard elements.
The large quantities of materials and the short construction period called for an extremely high level of commitment from PERI engineers involved. In peak times, up to 50 specialist formwork carpenters for customized formwork construction were busy at four different locations to efficiently convert the planning done by up to 30 design engineers. |
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Requirements
Apart from dealing with the difficult geometrical design, high quality surface finishes, sharp edges, tight formwork joints, no indentations, an orderly screw arrangement and defined, well-arranged tie positions demanded extremely close consultation with the architects for both the Twist and Myth areas.
The transfer of fresh concrete loads was a particularly skilful engineering achievement. Originally, the contractors had planned to use heavy-duty shoring but as insufficient flat surfaces were available for transferring the loads that had to be carried downwards through the formed structures, the shoring was highly customized and priced accordingly from section to section. Support loads of up to 150 kN/m2 which had to find a way through the formwork sections had to be taken into consideration. Planning and assembly of the shoring was carried out by the contractors whereby PERI engineers provided the so-called live load plans. |
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Thinking in the third dimension
Formwork planning and implementation
of the Myth and Twist construction units
After reading the three-dimensional construction data as a 3D surface model in IGS format, PERI design engineering specialists produced 3D volume units from the available data. These units allowed the creation of accurate sections relevant for further planning processes. This meant that each area could be clearly determined.
Through creative interaction of two and three-dimensional CAD planning, the division of the respective construction unit into planning segments subsequently took place. With the inclusion of the respective basic conditions (adjoining constructional elements, position of the steel waler layers and tie positions), an optimal formwork solution for each segment was then developed. In addition, support loads, which were to be safely transferred through the formwork units to the shoring as well as the maximum transportation dimensions, had to be taken into consideration.
On the basis of this data, creation of the actual assembly and application designs took place as well as the generation of the required data for the production of complete formwork elements. |
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A complex building –
a broad product range
Apart from extensive production of special formwork units, enormous quantities of standard equipment from the PERI rental park also have been transported to the site.
Overview of systems and components:
• 1,900 running metres of HD 200 heavy duty props
• 33,800 running metres of MULTIPROP post shores
• 3,700 running metres of ST 100 stacking towers
• numerous SB brace frames
• 1,700 m² PERI VT table modules
• 1,800 m² TRIO panel formwork
• 2,200 m² RUNDFLEX circular wall formwork
• 1,150 m² VARIO customised wall formwork
• 6,100 m² of VARIO girder wall formwork with double 3D formwork units for the stair and satellite main cores, the inclined cinema wall with changing radii over two floors (Level 0 and Level 1) as well as in other areas.
• 10,000 m² of 3D box-outs with VARIO formwork as base for particularly complicated segments containing multiple curved concrete surfaces. |
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Summary
This impressive project required unique engineering and assembly on the construction site itself, a high level of management expertise for the efficient co-ordination of the work and placed high demands on scheduling the enormous quantities of materials. Specialists from Züblin and Wolff & Mueller worked very closely with PERI engineers in order to meet the extremely high requirements of the architects. The vast experience of the PERI engineers and the efficiency of PERI’s assembly department made a large contribution to the success of this project. |
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| Contractors: |
Ed. Züblin AG, Stuttgart and Wolff & Müller GmbH & Co. KG, Stuttgart |
| Field Service: |
PERI Weißenhorn und PERI VIB Stuttgart |
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Field Service:
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PERI GmbH, Germany
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PERI report, June 2006
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