Palazzani Spider TSJ 25 at work at King’s College School Wimbledon in London: the new music school

Compact, low weight, and environmentally friendly machine capable of reaching all areas of the new music building

Founded in 1829, King’s College School Wimbledon is one of the leading academic schools in the UK. In 2013 Hopkins Architects were asked to design a state of the art Music School as part of an ongoing development masterplan to improve facilities at the School.

The result is a three linked but individual buildings, looking like a group of existing trees, a triple-height auditorium seating up to 200 people and a stage for a 70 piece orchestra is located closest to the centre of the School campus. Music teaching classrooms, practice rooms and a larger rehearsal room wrap around two sides of the auditorium in two individual, lower buildings with a basement.

Designed to create the desired acoustic, both the Concert Hall and Rehearsal Room have specially designed American white oak lined ceilings which express the exposed triangulated timber structure, with full height or clerestory glazing to admit natural daylight, ventilation and view.

Some external walls are constructed from handmade brick and the roofs from handmade clay roof tiles set in a pattern which again expresses their triangulated structure.

The right choice for maintenance

TCA Lifting sold the machine, together with a training and a comprehensive service package, to the prestigious King’s College School in late 2018 and they are very pleased with their purchase.

“We worked closely with the highly respected London based architects Hopkins when they were developing the cleaning and maintenance strategy for the proposed new music school for King’s College School, Wimbledon” says Phil Lomax from TCA Lifting Limited, historical partner of Palazzani in UK, “they needed a compact, low weight, and environmentally friendly machine capable of reaching all areas of the new music building. The dual electric & diesel powered Palazzani TSJ25 offered the perfect solution. Its smooth and accurate controls and multi section telescopic boom with long fly jib combined allows the maintenance staff to position the machine with great accuracy and reach areas that other MEWPs were unable to”.

The non-marking tracks allow the Spider Lift to move indoor on delicate floors.

The machine cage was provided of an anti-collision system, made of front laser sensors, to prevent from any accident of the operator and damage to the building.