INFRASTRUCTURE
Techo Anfiteatro Tito Puente
San Juan, Puerto Rico
​​This Project is located in the Luis Muñoz MarÃn Park in the San Juan municipality. The goal of the Project was to rehabilitate and roof the Tito Puente Amphitheatre. The owners’ plan requires roofing the existing seating in order to maximize day and night use during the year. The site presents some challenges. First, to roof the area without loosing the openess of the amphitheater; second, avoid lighting, visual and acoustic conflicts, among other possible conflicts, third, to endow the location with an iconic architectural presence. Taking all of this into consideration, three alternatives were initially presented, one that is moveable, one that is retractable and a fixed option. The moveable and retractable options allowed us to maintain the integrity of the open space, but the Budget dictated the final and viable option, a fixed roof option. Considering that the final option was the fixed, it was recommended that the materials be Light and that it felt inexistant to the audience. We considered a floating bubble as an ideal solution. By the day, it would feel like a sculpture in the park, by night, a firefly floating in the middle of the darkness. The oval structure posed visual continuity with no defined borders, giving an ephimeral feeling. It was concieved as a tensile structure built on a steel column Framework to one side in order to avoid blocking spectator views of the stage. The materials that compose the structure are a tensile membrane structure, and a supported steel frame using six trapezoidal columns. The interior of the oval is composed of a void that will house the sound, lighting and backstage of the amphitheater.
MartÃn Peña Bridge
San Juan, Puerto Rico
The project is located on the West side of the Caño MartÃn Peña, which runs parallel to the old bridge that carries the same name in the Hato Rey sector of the San Juan municipality. The project client was the Autoridad de Carreteras, whose objective is to provide the sector an emblematic bridge that connects the Fernandez Juncos Avenue in Santurce with the Muñoz Rivera Avenue in Hato Rey.
The sectors defining characteristics are: The surrounding wetlands, the elevated Tren Urbano tracks, the Mercantil Plaza building on the East side and the San Juan water canal that runs through. The new bridge must provide the following enhancements: a seamless connection for bicycle users (Ciclo VÃa), lanes for public and private transportation methods, and a pedestrian link between the peninsula, Hato Rey, Santurce and Parque Central. At the same time, it must provide passage to the public transportation motorboats, serve as a distinctive entry way to the Hato Rey Financial District and the old city of Santurce, and serve as an emblematic construction project for the area. Strategically, the project tries to establish a pause between two juxtaposed urban sectors, the tradicional Santurce area and the financial district of Hato Rey, the new center of San Juan.
The project was conceptualized as a giant lizard resting in the Caño MartÃn Peña. The head represents the entry way or door, the body, the connective fiber that crosses the through the sector, and the tail serves as the platform that touches ground. Formally, it is composed of two steel arches with a slight incline and displacement allowing a better fit to the changing topography. From each arch, tensile elements stretch out to the roadway support beams which are anchored to concrete bases at either side. Towards the end of each arch, a reinforced concrete volume provides ramp and stairways to connect to the sectors’ pedestrian level between the arch, the steel and tensors. In addition, it provides access to the bicycle route and the pedestrian walkway.
The materials used to build the project are structural profiles, steel tensors as primary elements y prefabricated concrete panels to redress the lower part of the bridge. The reinforced concrete was used for the support bases which are overlaid with natural stone. The strategic illumination for the bridge was thought to highlight the bridge and use the bridge as a landmark.