"The Oyster? Casino del Aljarafe

Description

The new Casino will be inaugurated in April 2006. As a part of the rehabilitation works in the existing office building, a new entrance marquee was planned. The canopy roof was needed to protect the entrance from the rain, as well as from the Sevilla sun (more than 3000 sun hours per year, 19ºC year average temperature, 27ºC average in July-August).
Part of the difficulty of this design was to find a way to anchor the roof to the existing building with an "untouchable" skin of glass and precast concrete pillars. It was decided to build a very light structure, with special attention to the transmission of the loads to the right points. Therefore, a curved 26m long beam was fixed to the roof slab, two masts placed in a V-shape were added in order to stabilize the arch and smaller masts support the high points.
Client and building type determined the final design. The V-shape is in fact a reference to the symbol of victory in casinos.
The fabric is a Ferrari 1202 nacre-silver colour, reinforcing the luxury aspect of the roof. Form and colour provide the roof with its nickname: "The Oyster".
The fabric is fixed to the arch by a keder and the back borders are pockets with cables tightened to the three corner plates. These corner plates are connected to the small masts placed on the roof slab at appropriate points (heads of pillars, nerves of slabs) and stabilized by means of two cables per mast.
These cables are anchored in the level +0.60 slab over the roof, in order to minimize the impact of the forces on the curtain wall.
The entire structure was planned, designed, manufactured and erected in 19 working days.

Description of the environmental conditions