Muuraus Nahkala laying bricks at two floor care home with mast climbers in Hyvinkää

Care home developer Tyvene is building a sheltered housing complex in Hyvinkää. Although it is only a two-storey building with a maximum height of 12 metres, mast climbers were used for bricklaying in this project.

Background

The demand for state-of-the-art sheltered housing for senior citizens in Finland has seen a significant increase in the last decade. The average age of the Finnish population is growing, which has led to a situation that more and more elderly are in need of rental apartments with 24-hour medical and nursing assistance.

Other trends in the long-term residential services have changed too in Finland. During the 2000’s the number of elderly people receiving long-term care in residential homes and health centers has decreased steadily, while the number of people residing in sheltered housing with 24-hour assistance has increased.

Residential social services is one of the fastest-growing fields of business in terms of sales and workforce in Finland. Attendo is one of the main operators in the field of residential social services in Finland.

Care home operator Attendo

Attendo is a Nordic company offering care services for senior citizens, people with disabilities, individuals and families. Attendo also offers health, medical and dental care as well as staffing services. They employ more than 20 000 persons in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark. Attendo Finland currently has 156 sheltered homes.

Sheltered housing complex Kultakehrä in Hyvinkää

Attendo’s Kultakerhä is a new sheltered housing complex being built at Iltatuulentie 2 in Hyvinkää. The complex is scheduled to open in 2017. It consists of 60 apartments of between 20-34 m². The construction of this project is handled by the main contractor, Rakennusliike U.Lipsanen. Despite the relatively small size of the building, mast climbers are used for the bricklaying operations.

The project

In 2015, the City of Hyvinkää organized a competition for the purpose of designing a senior citizen sheltered housing complex in the area of Metsäkalteva. Care home developer Tyvene won that contest and later on Attendo was confirmed as the operator for the newly proposed sheltered housing complex.

Arkkitehtipalvelu Oy was in charge of the architectural design. Rakennusliike U.Lipsanen was selected as the main builder. The building has only 3 500 m2, on 2 or 3 floors for a total number of 60 apartments. The plot adjacent to Kultakehrä also has a six-floor care home operated by Attendo. The construction of Kultakehrä began in October of 2016 and was completed by the end of 2017.

All the buildings have a red brick façade.

In spite of the small job site size mast climbers are used

Janna Nahkala is the GM and owner of Muuraus Nahkala Oy, the company awarded the bricklaying contract. It is a mid-sized company employing some 40 bricklayers.

Muuraus Nahkala Oy has been in the bricklaying business since 2010. Early on, they adopted the use of mast climbers in bricklaying work. Janne sees that the advantages in bricklaying work with mast climbers are remarkable.

We always try to agree with the main contractor that we could use mast climbers for our work. Bricklaying is many times easier with mast climbers than with scaffolding! states Janne Nahkala.

Since the project in Hyvinkää is of small size, (2-3 floors), only two free-standing SC5000 are used for bricklaying. The use of freestanding mast climbers allows the work platforms great mobility.

Customer feedback

Though Muuraus Nahkala doesn’t own any mast climbers, GM Janne Nahkala knows well the value that mast climbers can bring to bricklaying:

We always try to agree with the main contractor that we could use mast climbers for our work. Bricklaying is many times easier with mast climbers than with scaffolding! 
And our senior bricklayers want to save their knees and joints and not to be stretching up and down!