The City Council will begin installing the masts on the benches this week.
The countdown for shades in Sol, in the form of awnings, has already begun because, as confirmed by municipal sources to Europa Press, they will undoubtedly be installed this month of June.
It will be this same week that the City Council will start installing the masts on the benches. The next step will be the cables that will go from these masts to the anchors already placed on the facades, as the same sources have communicated. The final touch will be the awnings.
The City Council has been working on the anchoring ‘chinchetas’ to the buildings – without affecting the scheduled calendar – as they were not approved by the Heritage Commission at one of its last meetings.
These ‘chinchetas’ «came out a little bit,» explained the delegate for Works and Public Spaces, Paloma García Romero, which is why the Heritage Commission urged the City Council to modify them to be «a little flatter.»
Thus, Puerta del Sol will have shade awnings for the first time in its history, which will occupy the northern arch of the square. The installation of the new structure, which combines significant technical complexity with the requirements of the Local Heritage Commission, is entering its final stages these weeks.
The benches will serve as ‘mooring’ for the awnings installed to reduce the heat of Kilometer Zero this summer. For this, it was necessary to adapt the benches of the square, which required an allocation of almost one million euros signed by the Works area, led by Paloma García Romero. The benches will be adapted to then install the awnings by anchoring the masts that will support the textile shade elements since they cannot be cemented under the ground due to the Metro and Cercanías slabs.
The project for the installation of awnings was drafted by the Linazasoro-Sánchez studio, responsible for the design of the square. The proposal went through the Heritage Commission twice, which favorably informed about the design and its integration with the square.
Based on that project, a supply and installation contest for this shade structure was tendered. It consists of textile panels and a series of cables that will be anchored, on one hand, to the buildings of the square and, on the other hand, to stainless steel masts that must be installed on the granite benches that were incorporated with the square’s remodeling.
The City Council has emphasized that this textile structure underwent rigorous resistance tests, including verification through a ‘wind tunnel’ taking into account the prevailing winds in Madrid and their impact on Puerta del Sol.
THE METRO AND ADIF SLABS
Studies determined the need for anchoring and foundations under the benches to resist the wind. The calculations determined foundations impossible to build under the benches due to all the underground infrastructures in the area, the slabs of Metro and Adif, which also prevented the planting of trees.
That is why it was necessary to carry out another project to adapt the benches by being notched (emptied in their central part) to install a series of steel plates that ballast the anchoring of the masts but without affecting the underground infrastructures.
FUENTE