The San Sebastián City Council called a competition for the construction of a new bridge over the Urumea River in the Loyola neighbourhood to replace another old and in poor condition.

Our proposal offered a powerful qualifying image of the environment. The place was to be transformed after the construction of the work. A cable-stayed bridge with a steel pylon leaning over the river with a restraining cable that evoked “sokatira”, the popular sport in Gipuzkoa of “rope pulling“.

The bridge, with a single plan of cables, had a width of 18 meters of the deck, on which were located, on one side, two lanes for road traffic and a sidewalk for pedestrian traffic, on the other side, another sidewalk along with a bike path.

The execution and commissioning process were studied in 9 phases:

• Phase 1. Construction of the foundation. Piles, sheet piling, pile caps and drilled shafts.
• Phase 2. Placing the steel box of the deck over the river with cranes.
• Phase 3. Placement of the pylon with a crane.
• Phase 4. Cable routing and first stressing.
• Phase 5. Laying of central precast slabs and concreting of the concrete slab of the central section. Second cable stress.
• Phase 6. Assembly of precast slabs on ribs and concreting of the lateral overhangs.
• Phase 7. Third stressing of support cables and adjustment of back-stayed cables to compensate for permanent loads.
• Phase 8. Placing dead loads, checking loads on cables and restressing.
• Phase 9. Demolition of the old bridge.

Finally, no new bridge was built, and the old bridge is still in service.