Buildings
The residential complex is made up of four buildings with a square floor plan of 22.4 meters on each side and apparently similar in height.[4] With 16 upper floors (15 in the case of the south tower as it is at a higher level) and three floors below ground level, they are the third tallest buildings in the city of Oviedo.[6][10][4] The distribution of the buildings seeks to prevent them from visually overlapping, for which a separation of 30 meters was established between them, double the existing on a normal street.[17][4] This is intended to ensure that the four facades of the four buildings enjoy in-depth views.[17] Together they add up to 23,746 square meters built for housing while the commercial ground floors occupy an area of 4,750 square meters and the 501 parking spaces occupy 7,123 square meters.[4] For its design and construction, bioclimatic criteria were taken into account.
The complex sits on a rocky marl base.[19] The three below-grade levels are made with reinforced concrete in situ, isolated foundations, which provides greater stability, watertightness and protection against fire.[19][20] In the case of the buildings, it has a central footing of 1,000 cubic meters of concrete. The slabs of the below-grade floors, which in their upper part form the squares of the complex, are reticular of recoverable cassette with 50 centimeters of edge and prepared for the access of fire vehicles to the foot of the buildings.[19].
Each building has a central core "Nucleus (architecture)") of reinforced concrete in the shape of a double "U" facing each other.[17] While the first "U" houses the vertical transit of people through two elevators, the second is reserved for the vertical transit of services to the homes (water, gas, electricity and communications).[17] Two rings of concentric concrete pillars surround the central core.[19] Starting on the first floor, the outer concrete ring is replaced by a structure of fireproof HEB 140 metal pillars of up to three parallel units that are embedded in the façade.[19] For the slab of the upper floors, concrete vaults placed on wooden slabs are used.[19].
On the street level the buildings are completely open plan, only occupied by portals and arcades.[17] The portals are designed as glass rooms that provide visual permeability.[21] The access doors, double to facilitate access, have contactless or code access and are provided with pinless magnetic locks and managed by motion detectors.[21] For the floor and walls, black Zimbabwean marble has been used combined with concrete. seen, while the fronts of the elevators are made of stainless steel, this combination being repeated on the landings of the rest of the floors.[17].
In total they house 348 homes[17] with one, two, three and four bedrooms,[10] all exterior,[19] with the majority of them facing two facades.[17] On each floor you can find 4 or 5 homes except on the attic floor where only two homes with large terraces do so.[17]
Each home has a home automation system, gas and smoke detectors with automatic solenoid valve to cut off the gas supply, water leak detectors with automatic solenoid valve to cut off the water supply, alarm with presence detectors and connection to the individual heating system.[22] These services can be remotely managed through the home automation system.[22].
The living rooms have large floor-to-ceiling windows.[23] They are curtain wall type with triple insulation, Venetian blinds integrated into the air chamber, Saint-Gobain Coolite exterior solar control and quadrangular radiators that cross the window in its entire width providing an area of hot air throughout the window.[23] The rest of the windows in the homes, with a single pane, are made of large aluminum with aluminum blinds. integrated.[23] Bamboo wood parquet was used for the floors while the doors and cabinets are made of walnut wood with beech marquetry.[22].
For the exterior cladding of the buildings, a ventilated façade solution was adopted as it is a successful technique in terms of energy efficiency and prevention of damage to the construction.[19][24] To this end, the four towers are wrapped in a skin of glass panels separated from the construction.[24] With this, the envelope generates an air cushion around the perimeter, thus achieving better thermal performance of the buildings, which reduces energy consumption and CO2 emissions.[24] This is due to that air circulation is generated in an upward direction as it enters through the lower area of the façade and exits through openings located in the upper area of the roof.[19] In addition, using a vinyl sheet of a specific graphic design in combination with the glass sheets, a lower visual impact is achieved since the buildings reflect the color of the sky and the surrounding clouds, blending in with the environment.[10][24].
The surrounding skin is made up of 10,000 laminated and tempered glass panels weighing approximately 200 kilos, each separated by about 10 centimeters from the buildings.[24][25][26] The glass panels are adhered using 3M VHB acrylic foam tape two centimeters wide to a vertical metal substructure in charge of supporting the entire static load.[27][28] To guarantee the safety of the glass panels, these are coated with a 3M Safety S40 Exterior safety film.[29] These films reduce the risks derived from dangers such as fragments of broken glass, vandalism and other types of impacts, they are resistant to graffiti, vandalism, scratches or abrasions and block 99% of ultraviolet rays, equivalent to a protection factor (SPF) 1000, which contributes to protecting the interior of the glass panels. buildings.[30].
For the vertical transport of the buildings, elevators from the Finnish company KONE[10] of the MonoSpace Series R type were used. Eight elevators of one of the most avant-garde models were installed,[10] two in each building. The boxes, with a capacity for ten people (800 kilos of load), move at a speed of 1.6 meters per second,[10] making the journey from the street floor to the attic in just 30 seconds.[21] When the call button is pressed, the closest elevator comes, preventing two from traveling.[10].
A distinctive element of the construction is the communication system between the towers.[10] With the aim of improving safety, the evacuation routes have been doubled,[18] with the buildings remaining joined in the air two by two by glass galleries whose purpose is to facilitate the evacuation of the highest floors in the event of a fire or accident.[10][7] They also respond to the idea of creating high-rise communication, so that there are up streets and down streets, on the ground.[10][2][6].
On each of the roofs of the four buildings, gondolas were installed on the roof for cleaning and maintenance of the façades.[19] These have a system of rails on which they move with the aim of reaching the four edges of each tower.[19].
There are three floors below ground. The commercial areas are located there (first two floors), the garages, the storage rooms and common service spaces of the buildings.[20] The garage has 501 spaces of at least 2.5 meters wide by 5 meters long.[20] They are distributed between the last two floors and have differentiated accesses which avoids ramps inside them.[20] The circulation lanes are five meters wide, thus allowing double access. circulation.[20] To renew the air in the garages and storage rooms, a forced ventilation system with supplementary natural ventilation equipped with gas detectors is used.[20] For fire protection, each floor has a fire protection system with fire detectors and alarms, at least five emergency exits per floor marked with a marked route, BIES-type extinguishing hoses inside and an external hydrant system for firefighters.[20].
Plaza and green areas
The urbanization consists of a large public square on three different levels, children's games[10][2][32] and 10,000 square meters of green areas.[6][32] Dozens of trees have been planted in the gardens, and beds of shrubs placed forming different geometries.[19] The unevenness in the gardens has been covered with slate stone breakwaters.[19].
As an extension of the square, a large viewpoint in the shape of a bow or breakwater was built in steel and concrete.[6][2][33] This defines in its lower part the accesses from the park to access the buildings or cross the urbanization, being an aesthetic but also functional element.[33].
To connect the different plazas, a Corten steel zigzag ramp and a concrete cantilever staircase were designed.
The exterior urbanization was completed with benches made of wooden slats that run along part of the surfaces simulating the undulating movement of waves.[33] To resolve the outlets of the vents that renew the air in the garages and storage rooms, three sets of brightly colored tubes were created.[33].