星空传媒

I refer to the recent article 'Rolling out the barrel vaults' (CM, June). Not for the first time, and probably not the last, a project held up as an example of elite construction shows a photograph that made me cringe.

The number of CDM and general construction safety faults was like a 'spot the hazard', competition. So, what were the issues?

Barrel vault roofs of such short radius are very difficult to build safely. The photograph shows sections of roofing in place where one can only guess how the roofers got to them. In addition, the curved nature of the roof has left alarming gaps beneath the bottom hand rail, with no toe board in place and the netting appears also to have some very large gaps. A triple hand rail would normally be required here.

The roofing material, although "safe", is not for the faint-hearted and is easily damaged due to the flexibility required to achieve the radius. Try walking on these slopes in wet conditions.

Working down the building, the tripod-style edge protection to the floor slabs is totally inadequate. The overhangs in the steel structure to the face are going to make it very difficult to scaffold, assuming that it is brickwork. A scissor lift would have even more problems. Overall, it's not a great example of construction at its best.