New UPO-350-FE steel parasols at the San Ignacio School in Torrelodones
The San Ignacio de Loyola School is a Diocesan School belonging to the Archbishopric of Madrid, whose origins are rooted in Torrelodones since 1964. In this year, around the parish hall, a primary teaching activity was generated that added that of baccalaureate shortly after and that has grown to cover infant, primary, secondary and vocational training cycles. Originally, it served a population of just 1,500 inhabitants, a far cry from the nearly 25,000 it has today, which is why the growth of its facilities has needed to be parallel to that of the town’s population.
Location: Torrelodones (Madrid)
Web: https://www.sanignaciotorrelodones.com/
Architects: CC Arquitectura
Photography: Elena Almagro
Typology: Educational architecture
Sun protection needs
In addition to the peculiarities of educational architecture buildings, private schools have other additional specifications in common, which must be taken into account when studying these projects.
Buildings of this type require an extremely efficient use of resources, as they often have highly specialised educational programmes, which involve higher maintenance costs. In addition, unlike public schools, they have to promote their educational project in a more intensive way, and therefore, incorporating steel parasols, with striking finishes makes much more sense, both functionally and constructively.
The main building, newly built, has a “C” shaped floor plan, for whose interior areas a system of steel sunshades was designed, which would control the sunlight received both in the distribution corridors and in some particularly sensitive classrooms such as the computer rooms or the theater. The project also individually considered the solar protection needs of both the sports hall and the library.
Our contribution to the project
steel sunshades are the ideal candidates for this type of project. With a blade width of 35 cms and its characteristic double teardrop shape, they provide a personality of their own to the buildings, which in this case, the design maximizes by using slats with a color on each side, so that there are two facades in one, in enviable cost and efficiency ratios. The configuration of the colours has a bright red colour in contrast with the silver colour, and two shades of green, to round off a construction that goes from one colour scheme to another in just a few moments, depending on the orientation of the slats.
In addition to the steel sunshades, this building incorporated rectangular tubular aluminum lattices model UPE-200×40, a large-format lattice, which is characterized by the flexibility of its design. With this product, ideal sun protection is achieved due to its balance between the shading of the room and the direct view of the outside, which allows for better habitability and comfort to the rooms
Finally, in the gym area we have incorporated UPO-150 fixed aluminum slat lattices with clamps to protect the interior of the court from reflections. Given the large surface area to be covered, this solution was chosen both for the greater versatility in inclinations and inclines, and for the advantages in the maintenance of this system, lighter than the UPE-200×40 mentioned above.
