It is an exceptional 236 m building with a hotel and offices. Sacyr Vallehermoso Group is promoting this project in the area where Real Madrid’s training grounds used to be, on Paseo de la Castellana (the future business centre).
It will have 59 floors (with 6 service floors), each one measuring 1600 m2. There are also 6 additional floors of 7500 m2 below ground level.
The architects were near the project, which was an advantage because the tower is very elaborated and optimised, and has a high architectural quality.
This building has been an ambitious challenge because of its height and originality. The aim was for it to be suitable for its purposes, taking into account key factors such as the quality of the product, a good finish and the completion period.
The Technical Department at ULMA Construcción works hard to offer Sacyr Vallehermoso Group a product which adapts perfectly to the structure.
To build the main core for the lifts, which the structure will support from the 6th floor upwards, ULMA Construcción offers the latest technology for building skyscrapers: the SELF-CLIMBING SYSTEM. This system allows the scaffolding to rise automatically, reducing the use of cranes and saving time in the process.
The self-climbing technique has a hydraulic system that raises the scaffolding and columns automatically and consecutively.
This system, together with the formwork for walls ENKOFORM V-100, allows to build very high vertical faces.
The core of the tower varies four times along the structure, so the technical office at ULMA Construcción has adapted the formwork for this specific part of the project.
The height of the different layers varies from 3 to 4 metres (free height + thickness of the flagstone).
The sections of the vertical formwork are 4 m high.
The sections are made out of phenolic panels, stiffened with HT-20 wooden beams (vertical) which in turn are braced orthogonally with double UPN-100 metal bars (horizontal).
The sections are ‘tied’ together facing each other (outside part with inside part) with DW 15 bars, bell-shaped nuts and PVC covers to retrieve the bars easily.
As the structure of the building is complex—we had to design formwork that would allow parts of the sections to fold over, to be able to keep them in place for maintenance (cleaning, application of concrete release agent and steel reinforcement) in the self-climbing process.
To ensure the formwork and the joints between sections are secure, we use tensioners, calipers and different stiffeners.
The formwork also has platforms to place concrete at different levels. The platforms have three-layer boards, HT-20 wooden beams and DUPN-120 bars. They also include safety elements (bearings and railing feet). The sections are delimited with DUPN-120 bars, clamped orthogonally to horizontal DUPN-100 bars.
Each one of the three lift shafts outside the core has lintels (which will be bushings from the third layer onwards; the first floors are a water tank).
From the third layers onwards there are also lintels in the inside walls (in contact with the inside triangle) to allow access to the lobby from the three lift areas.
In the corners of the inside triangle there are open spaces to allow access to the lobby from the outside.
These lintels and open spaces will be made with the COMAIN Hand-held formwork, and ENKOFORM V-100 System (HT-20 wooden beams and phenolic cover) will be used for the top part (with scaffolding and shoring) and the wall that closes the tank.
ULMA Construcción offers the client CC-4 horizontal formwork as well as the ALUPROP aluminium prop.
One of the main advantages of the CC-4 formwork compared to our competitors' products is that you can assemble the grid first and then the panels, which means that performance on site improves substantially, as well as achieved an excellent result.
The 90º connection of the CC-4 allows to change the direction of the structure (beams on beams) so the formwork is assembled more securely and has a better layout.
When the formwork is removed, the materials can be reused. This process is very simple, thanks to the design of the CC-4 drop header. Just knock the wedge on the header so the beams and panels lower enough to remove them comfortably and reuse them in another project. This allows the process to be more dynamic and allows a better performance.
