Officially open to the public since December 5th, the futuristic project created in the Principality of Monaco it is now a reality in all respects, after about 10 years of construction work: we are talking about Mareterra, the artificial peninsula which outlines a new residential neighborhood in the city. As per the work schedule, the new community of residential spaces in the Principality comes to life from the initial design idea which draws inspiration from the two complementary elements guiding the projector rather the sea and land. Their fusion, thanks to the application of modern engineering techniques, spanning the new frontiers of architectureallowed it development of new residential, cultural and recreational spaces serving the community, fully targeting the Principality’s desired growth strategies.
The essential points of the project
Also known as Portier Covethe Mareterra project envisages, in its entirety, the construction of approximately 6 new hectares of spaces intended for residences, commercial activities and pedestrian paths. The architectural design is signed by three important names in the panorama, namely Renzo Piano (known Italian starchitect), Denis Valode (important French starchitect) and Michel Desvigne (pioneer in the field of urban and landscape planning for more than thirty years). Mareterra is configured as a real one new district of the city of Munichwhose development, mainly pedestrian (approximately 19,000 square meters), equipped with a lush internal park that maximizes the ecological footprint of the project, cost a total of approximately 2.4 billion dollars and about 10 years of work! The spaces where the new neighborhood is born directly overlook the sea and, for this reason, Mareterra enjoys a large walkable seafrontbut also of a small port “private“.
In addition to these important features, Mareterra has in all respects a vast residential and commercial offeringas in the 6 hectares considered for the territorial enlargement, several buildings were built, architecturally divided into apartments, 110 in total, and independent villas, 10 specifically. The project also has important numbers regarding concepts of sustainability and environmental impactsummarized by the following strengths:
- about 27000 m2 Of overcast green throughout the entire extension of the area;
- 9000 m2 Of panels solar;
- 50% of reusable rainwater;
- coverage through renewable sources of approximately80% of energy consumption for heating and cooling.
Although all this may seem relatively normal, the fundamental concept behind the project is that everything described was achieved beyond the mainland. In fact, a truly new part of the City and consequently of the State was created, quantified at approximately 3% of the current surface area of the Principality (initially, the principality covers an area of approximately 2.08 km23% of which is approximately 0.06 km2 which are the declared 6 hectares!).
The foundation structures
After the construction of the safety belt, the internal space that will form the neighborhood is created by filling with solid material (sandy) and consequent drainage of the internal water present. Nonetheless, to ensure a stable and slightly sagging support due to the important loads acting on the entire complex, also due to the significant heights of the buildings constructed, the foundations of the complex Mareterra have been made deepor through foundation piles. In this case, Mareterra is made up of many 1100 foundation pilescreated in approximately 20 months of work. The length of the poles varies from 17 meters (in areas close to the natural coast) up to a maximum of 61 meters (near the protection structures of the artificial coast, or below the high structures above ground). It’s about 40 km of piles made, for a total of approximately 40,000 cubic meters of concrete poured to this end.
Defense from the waves
From an engineering point of view, an interesting part of the project concerns the creation of maritime protection structures. To this end, the artificial coast of Mareterra was built by combining 18 reinforced concrete caissonsprefabricated, transported to site and ballasted once in position by filling with granular material. In reality, the granular filling is only the definitive one: throughout the positioning and alignment of the caissons, the filling is managed using water, which allows the position of the cement structure to be easily modulated. In the final phase, i.e. with the sand, the weight of a single box is approx 24 thousand tons.
This belt of boxes, trapezoidal in shape, it acts as protection against the effects of wave motion, absorbing the waves that hit the coast and dissipating the incoming energy into damping chambers.
