Collaborators
Diego Velayos
José Manuel Castillejo
Photography
Joan Roig
Gemma Aparicio
An impossible davit, emerging from a slender wall. Two opposing inclined planes, which arise from the fold of the ground plane and formalize the cover of the ramps in and out of the parking lot on the lower level. The reconstruction of the square from the void: under the footprint of the canopies, and in the space between them.
Just as the outline of the canopies is a great compositional freedom with respect to the orthogonality of the traces of the square, the planes that make up the covers themselves are oblique at different angles with respect to the horizontal plane of support of the square. Precision geometric construction becomes a challenge as demanding as the structural one.
The main marquee flies almost 20m emerging from a wall only 20cm thick in its rear elevation. However, this wall, trapezoidal in plan, grows in thickness up to 2m, to serve as a rigid body to start the canopy. This is solved by means of two metal box-section girders, with a variable height, and cross ribs made of steel, which adapt to the upper and lower oblique planes. As a ship's hull, the central beams like keel, and cross-ribs like frames, resolve all the canopies in a unitary way.
