Photo Credit: Alex Mead
Featured in this picture is a complicated erection of scaffolding. Scaffolding configurations like this, and far more complicated systems, are used to gain access to the entire outside of buildings for renovation and repair purposes. In this photograph it can be seen that the outside of this church is being refinished for architectural reasons. The advantage of using scaffolding over a cherry picker or other means of access is the ability to have many workers at different parts of the structure at the same time. Scaffolding also allows for waves of work to move up or down the structure concurrently as is common with many construction schedules. If you look close you can see workers near the top of the steeple!