What is this netting for?

[myshtern]

What is the netting at the top of the structure for?
Is that to maintain temperature for the curing of the concrete? I'd imagine the humidity it creates isnt useful.
To slow wind?

[Canadian Mind]

Tools sometimes get dropped, guys sometimes fall over the edge, concrete forms slip.

Those would be my best guesses.

[myshtern]

Originally Posted by Canadian Mind

Tools sometimes get dropped, guys sometimes fall over the edge, concrete forms slip.

Those would be my best guesses.

So you're thinking that its attached to a kind of scaffolding that allows workers to work from the outside of the forms?

[Kelvin]

I would suggest Canadian Mind is on the right track. Hoarding, when it is used for curing concrete, is usually not a mesh but rather tarps. Also, humidity is not necessarily a bad thing for curing concrete - in fact we often specifically employ "misters" over freshly placed concrete to ensure it stays sufficiently moist during curing (a mister being little more than a way of directing water into a fan in and around the concrete slab). I would also not suspect that given the amount of greenery in the photo that they were hoarding any concrete at this time - that process is usually only employed in cold weather conditions (to keep heat in) in combination with adding heat via propane heaters.

[Canadian Mind]

Originally Posted by myshtern

So you're thinking that its attached to a kind of scaffolding that allows workers to work from the outside of the forms?

Thats another possibility, but I was more thinking if some guy fucks up and drops a wrench which falls over the edge.

[Nowhereman1280]

Nearly all the concrete buildings here in Chicago that are UC have that netting, it indeed covers up a scaffolding over the rising forms that the works can walk around on. You see them inside of it pulling out the bolds that go through the cement slab that hold the two sides of the form together while they are filled with concrete.

[M.K.]

Indeed, those nets allow workers working outside structure and do not let things dropping around. In Asia it is common to use Bambus or steel tubes mixed with wood making them very tidy. It is a protection during construction of upper floors against insecure work coming down.

[anyiliang]

The netting is used for securing the scaffolding together and to help prevent people or things falling.

[Nat]

Originally Posted by Kelvin

I would suggest Canadian Mind is on the right track. Hoarding, when it is used for curing concrete, is usually not a mesh but rather tarps. Also, humidity is not necessarily a bad thing for curing concrete - in fact we often specifically employ "misters" over freshly placed concrete to ensure it stays sufficiently moist during curing (a mister being little more than a way of directing water into a fan in and around the concrete slab). I would also not suspect that given the amount of greenery in the photo that they were hoarding any concrete at this time - that process is usually only employed in cold weather conditions (to keep heat in) in combination with adding heat via propane heaters.

This seems to me to be the probable explanation but, depending on where this is, and the weather conditions, it could also be to shield the concrete from wind and direct sun to keep the surface from drying out. as you pointed out concrete must bekept damp to cure properly.