Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
3
PRoJecT
in fact, the philosophy that has driven the
developed activity had for basis the necessity to
obtain a balance between the excavation and land-
fills solutions, hence assuring, besides the land-
scape integration, also the stability of the whole
hill and the maintenance of all the foreseen struc-
tures, spaces and equipments.
as an example of the works developed during
the project, it's presented some of the changes
introduced in the architectural design resulting
from the geotechnical conditionings:
- elimination of the resort's internal circulation
main street, taking advantage of the feeder road
which crosses the resort, creating accesses for
several blocks. as a matter of fact, the creation
of a new internal street would imply, due to the
area's topographical conditions, the execution
of a significant number of retaining structures,
as well as the execution of road and pedestrian
overpasses on the existent road;
- new apartments' planimetry implantation, a
change with an important incidence over n2
and n4 blocks, where initially there was a strong
concentration of buildings, placed too near of
an existent retaining structure and in an area
with a significant slope angle, factors that would
force major interventions. Therefore, all this
structures were rearranged in n3 block, inte-
grated in a smoother area at the hill's northern
zone, in two main alignments, using mainly to
landfill retaining structures, with a small height
in the limit of the n3 block;
- altimetry optimization of all blocks, structures
and streets, to achieve an equilibrium between the
parts which are above or below the ground level,
and with the purpose to minimize the excessive
height of some retaining structures, either exca-
3.1
Resort's layout
The need to create platforms in a very angled slope
in order to allow any construction—buildings, lei-
during the design phase particular attention was
given to these structures' implantation, either in
planimetry, either in altimetry, thus assuring an har-
monious landscape integration. in fact, it was just
by a straight interaction between the design team,
particularly the one responsible for the geotechni-
cal design, and the architecture office, responsible
for the resort's layout, that it was possible to opti-
mize the construction works volume associated to
the masses handling and to the execution of the
retaining structures, thus assuring the economical
viability of cabo Girão Tourist Resort's construc-
tion (cenorgeo 2003b, cenorgeo 2004).
Figure 3.
General view from the top of n3 block.
Figure 4.
n3 block cross-section.
