Office building in Madrid (Banco Populare)

Office building in Madrid (Banco Populare)

Building use

Office building

Country/Region

Spain

Overview

The building is the new headquarter of the Banco Populare in Madrid, a Spanish bank. The site is a rectangle of over 300meters by 100 meters, very close to second most important highway in Spain. The architectural concept is based on a series of 4 blocks each 4 story tall, joined at the roof level by an additional 5th office floor, dedicated to the bank management and a roof used for mechanical plants.

Basic information (construction date, number of stories, gross floor area, adopted design code, engineer(s), Contractor(s), etc.)

Construction date: 2013-2017
Number of stories: 5
Gross floor area:125,000m2
Adopted design code: Eurocode
Engineer(s): MC2 Estudio de Ingeniería
Contractor(s): Dragados + Horta + Tauxme

Issue and/or innovation

The additional 5th floor that covers almost the entire lot has some significant spans and cantilevers that required the adoption of significant structural elements.

Reason for composite solution

Composite elements are used in two elements: composite columns and composite floors. For the columns the goal was to keep the size of all vertical elements of either 60 or 80 cm of diameter. Some of them act in tension, while other in compression. In both cases the steel encased profiles plays a significant role in keeping the size of the vertical structures to a minimum. Composite floors are used to minimize the size of the horizontal beams and to reduce vibrations.

Specific solution/technical details

For architectural reasons, columns are either 60 or 80cm in diameter. Depending on the loading conditions they are either formed by reinforced concrete only, or by composite construction. Composite columns are made with heavy H profiles or welded plates. As for the floor elements, the metal lattices are arranged so that the lower chord is under the lower face of the roof slab, connecting to it by means of a flexible “bolt” type connection.
– The diagonals and uprights cross the roof plane. They are partially exposed to the outside environment, as is the upper cord.
– In all the “overhang” areas, that is, outside the footprint of the blocks, the type of floor chosen is mixed concrete-covered sheet metal with a total thickness of 180 mm (120 + 60), in order to reduce weight.
– The floor parts of the fourth floor hanging from the roof lattices are designed with the same type of mixed floor for the same reason. The mixed slab areas on the covered floor are not connected to the lower chord of the lattice given its reduced thickness (180 mm), which limits the leveling capacity due to failure in the concrete compression rod is important. The sizing of the lattices is, therefore, eminently metallic, except for local areas inside the blocks that are connected taking advantage of the capacity and rigidity of the 0.35 m thick solid slabs.

Impact or effectiveness

To keep the most heavily loaded columns in the diameter of 0.80 m, it has been necessary to embed metal profiles that conduct the loads by adhesion into the rest of the concrete structure. Likewise, some of the supports collect tensile forces due to the roof, which are also transmitted through metal profiles embedded in the horizontal supports. The transfer is provided for by adhesion, extending the mixed profiles in this case only up to level zero, in which the tractions are comfortably supported by the weight of the slabs. The embedded metal profiles collaborate constructively in the assembly of the roof, by allowing the support of the lattices independently of the concreting of the supports.

References / Technical Papers Content

A. Vidal Vacas, A. Serrano Corral, “Banco Popular new headquarters building in Madrid”, Hormigon y Acero 2018, 69(248) 1-25, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hya.2017.06.001