Vialia Estación Shopping Center in Vigo: a challenging and demanding project
We have more projects and stories to share with you, and today we are traveling to the heart of the Rías Baixas and to the largest city in Galicia, Vigo, where we had the pleasure of taking part in one of the projects that marked a before and after in the history of Technitex. Do you want to know more?
3, 2, 1… Let’s start!
Let’s go back in time some fifteen years when a collaboration project between the public and private sectors began —today the Vialia Estación Shopping Center in Vigo—, which we will talk about in this article.
In 2006, it was decided to extend the high-speed train to the city. A year later, a new sports and shopping center and the tender for the railway section to the Urzáiz station were announced, completing the A-Coruña-Vigo section of the Atlantic Axis.
In autumn 2008, the prestigious architect Thom Mayne, Pritzker Prize winner in 2005 and founder of the Morphosis architecture studio, joined the project in collaboration with L35 Arquitectos, at the head of Esperanza Valle.
Making a great leap in time, in 2015 the new Urzáiz High-Speed Rail station came into service and was warmly received by the people of Vigo.
In 2018, the construction process began, as did our great challenge, which we will explain below ⤵
Our project: THE PROJECT
It is a project with a constructed area of 93,634 m² and 130 shops, gardens, restaurants, children’s play areas, sports facilities and a viewpoint towards the estuary.
Our main function was the manufacture, supply and installation of smoke curtains throughout the shopping center and some premises, as well as fire curtains where sectorization was required.
Walking through corridors, we imagined people from all over the world shopping in stores, hypermarkets and enjoying a movie. Taking the platform towards the Camino de Santiago, or back home, visiting the famous Christmas lights of Vigo. In short, we were aware that we were part of an ambitious and challenging project that we also enjoyed and today we can say that we are fully satisfied and more than proud of the entire team that participated. Tecnitex would be nothing without its team members.
For this reason, there was a lot of work ahead. No less than a total of 3,500 m2 of completely hidden mobile smoke curtains, protecting without breaking the decorative line and imperceptible to visitors.
Among the main goals of this type of system are directing the smoke towards the extraction elements, facilitating the work of the emergency teams, preventing personal injury and preventing the fire from spreading.
Achieving this goal was the result of a great deal of prior design, adaptation and planning work, which allowed the project to be correctly executed and completed.
After several months of intense work, we were able to see the results of the effort. Final touches, adjustments, test runs, nervousness in the corridors. The shopping center was about to open.
Vialia Estación de Vigo Shopping Center was inaugurated in October 2021 with great success.
This is not just one of our success stories. It was a great professional and life lesson since its demand and scope have made us to a large extent what we are at Tecnitex.