The projected tensile structure is part of the global project for the remodelling of the old Maritime Station located on Pier 14 of the Port of Alicante. The intervention consisted in the rehabilitation of this building in clear deterioration with the aim of updating the services that provides and achieving a more contemporary image in the port area.
The main building consists of a longitudinal volume that houses common areas and an office. The ground floor, covered with sheet metal, has the function of isolating it from the outside and as a base for a totally transparent upper floor.
At one end of the building, and in counterpoint to the hermeticism that characterizes it, appears the main entrance framed by two superimposed tensile structures. It is a structure formed by a main structural steel mast, designed in a nautical way, including the crow's nest; and four secondary masts that, together with the retaining ties, fix the structures to the foundation.
Between these masts, main and secondary, as previously stated, the membranes of the tensile structure develop; both anticlastic, one of them following the form of a hyperbolic paraboloid; and the other the one of a conoid; the two classical solutions of anticlasticity in tensile structures.
Both membranes are made of polyester yarn cords organized in weft and warp, with an external PVC coating to improve the durability of the textile material. The textile material used was Precontraint 1002 from Ferrari, using 1650 m2.
The obvious analogy to the sails of a ship serves as a reference for the distribution and linking of the area between the interior and the exterior.
