ZaragOH!za – Spain Home of EXPO 2008

Artist impression Yet another first for Loadtest with a 63m 2000mm pile tested to a load of over 40MN, probably the biggest pile test in Spain. The location of the site on an island in the River Ebro, made other forms of load testing impossible. The small working space available meant there was no room for kentledge or an anchor pile reaction system. This, together with the very high loads required, gave Loadtest the ideal project for our first venture onto Spanish soil.

Expo 2008 is based on the water theme with the official title of ZH2O. At present, Zaragoza has almost 650,000 inhabitants and is estimated to grow by 10% by 2008, ranking Zaragoza among the top cities in Spain, behind Madrid and Barcelona. Tourism receipts could be well over a thousand million euros and the project has the potential to create upwards of 9,500 jobs.

Expo 2008 will be located on one side of the river and this very prestigious and technically challenging project is the pedestrian access and pavilion build on the bridge. Designed by Zaha Hadid and Arup tasked with making it work.

This 275m long bridge is to hold one of five pavilions for the exhibition and is shaped like a fish. It will have 7000m2 of exhibition space on 2 floors. The bridge is actually designed to move hydro-statically and the scale-like windows will shimmer in the sunshine on completion.

Pictures courtesy of Expo2008.
Click here for more details on the official Expo website.

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ZaragOH!za – Spain Home of EXPO 2008