A new way of approaching the construction of buildings that prioritizes ecology, costs and construction times, began to gain ground in La Plata after the incorporation of the Prenova system for making slabs. It is a modality that dispenses with the beams in the process of assembling the structure, thus generating better design conditions for the environments and guaranteeing the completion of the works in much less time.
The system, created by the architect Ricardo Levington, arrived in La Plata with a history written by its own creator in emblematic projects throughout the world in countries such as Armenia and Uruguay. For 40 years, the architect studied the structural systems found in nature, with a particular interest in the structure and composition of skeletons and bones, which contain air inside. After several years of research, he managed to reproduce them and apply them in modern construction.
IN THE SILVER
Its entry into the large-scale construction market of the Buenos Aires capital is produced by the Yacoub Studio, which already uses it in most of its large projects. “In the city it is little used and nobody has it as a premise for all their projects”, says Viviana Yacoub, responsible for the company and for the decision to adopt this modality facing the cost of the patent.
Currently, he works with the Prenova slab system in almost all his projects. The most emblematic buildings are those that are in full process at 17 and 60, diagonal 73 between 54 and 55; 19 between 41 and 42; and 44 between 14 and 15, but it is company policy to take him to all his undertakings.
“The premise we have is to convert today’s artisanal construction into a ‘meccano’, which implies reducing the number of man-hours and artisanal techniques for housing development,” the explanation begins.
Its implementation aims to solve habitability problems by providing the best materials, without the need to use ornaments that traditional construction uses to hide the aesthetic defects of ceilings and floors. “This means that when one is going to make a building, one does not have to build a castle, the ornament is not necessarily something that gives better quality to the environment in which one is living”, explains the architect.
THE SKELETON
Prenova’s definition is that of slabs without beams. These same ones by means of the use of meshes that surround the spherical discs work together distributing the loads to the columns. By not having beams, the design freedom is immense since it does not have the obstacle of one of these beams crossing a room.
“The slabs that we make are flattened by using spherical discs that are recycled -he explains-. What makes it possible to do this is to work the entire slab with an ideal porosity, as if it were a bone”.
And to clarify the comparison with a skeleton, he affirms that it has a greater strength due to that porosity. “If you had a solid bone it would break at any blow, that’s why the porosity makes it stronger”, he graphs.
In addition, the spherical disc makes it possible to avoid the load distributor, which in traditional construction is the beam. The saving of these steps also implies an economy in labor and work time.
“These discs also make the structure lighter and require fewer columns, which is why it has the quality of being perfect for land that has poor compaction or poor settlement”, deepens the explanation of the new construction system.
ECOLOGY AND ECONOMY
But the premise of this system is ecology and therefore sustainability. One piece of data is overwhelming in support of this statement: concrete is the third largest pollutant in the world.
And ecology is combined with economy to increase the potential of the technique. The owner of the Yacoub Studio explains that the porosity that the use of these discs gives to the slab allows saving up to 40% percent of concrete depending on the structure that is being assembled and 20% of steel. In addition to the 50% economy that occurs in labor.
And in terms of performance, he adds that a feature that all the departments or the building built with this system can boast of is that the spherical discs “provide greater thermal and acoustic insulation”.
“On the other hand, in the walls and dividing walls we do not work with the common brick of ’18, but we use a double wall multilayer brick, which is what allows an even greater insulation”, he adds regarding the way of working in The Silver.
Another aspect related to the Prenova system is the brick gluing technique. “We do not need to adhere them using the traditional format with the tipper, the top and the winch, but rather the personnel are directly given polymer adhesives and with a single strip they can glue three or four times more bricks than what a person glues with the traditional modality. At this point, the construction process aims to optimize the “man-hours” ratio
WITHOUT GAS, WITH ELECTRICITY, NEXT PROJECT
Once the masonry is advanced, the system considers the installations for the next stage. There the architect adds an advantage: “The Prenova slab allows to cover all the facilities inside”.
The obstacle that arises is that of the gas installation, a service whose provision in recent times has become a problem when it comes to high-rise buildings. “It’s quite difficult because you can’t place the pipes inside the slab with a sleeve-pipe or thermofusion plastic pipes,” he explains.
He considers then that “the use of gas is outdated and complicates work times”. The alternative to which the developer appeals is then that of electrical energy, both for heating and cooking systems.
Once the facilities are ready, the plastering stage arrives and in this step the development is not traditional either, which requires an almost artisanal intervention of the workers. “What we use is a projected plaster plaster, which reduces three or four times the time it takes to complete the entire building,” explains the architect and developer.
THE TIMES
In concrete numbers, if an entire floor is revoked in a fortnight with the traditional system, this reduces it to four or five days. And as an added value, “it has an excellent finish that even makes it easier for painters to enter, because traditional plaster has to be treated before painting, and this one doesn’t. By having a perfect and resistant finish, the painting category enters more quickly.”
“It is an architecture that facilitates the development of green terraces and a finish so perfect that plaster ceilings can be avoided. Since there are no beams, there is no need for a ceiling to hide those beams,” says Viviana Yacoub.
The time that, according to the architect, is gained with the Prenova system is combined in La Plata with the simplification of the provisional authorization procedures recently applied by the Municipality of La Plata with the “express work permits”. “If you have all the documentation online, in 15 or 20 days they give you permission to start building, when before it took six or seven months,” she says.
The equation of speed, economy and ecology is decisive for the studio led by the architect to have defined itself by the system developed by Levington. And it is combined with a sales strategy that needs these virtues. “We sell the building in one or two months, that’s why this agility is important,” she says. And she concludes: “To achieve business objectives, it is nothing more or less than innovating in the construction process”.
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by CEDOC