En enero de 2012, una nueva sorpresa: no se había tenido en cuenta el hueco del ascensor, como bien se ve en los diseños promocionales donde no constan los típicos espacios dedicados en las azoteas a los motores elevadores. “El espacio estaba calculado para un bloque de 20 plantas”, narran las mismas fuentes.
My translation:
In January 2012, a new surprise: the elevator shaft had not been taken into account, as can be seen in the promotional renderings, which don’t show typical rooftop spaces dedicated to lifting motors. “The space was calculated for a 20-storey block,” say the same sources.
There seems to be confusion in both the Spanish article and the English re-reporting. My take: it was merely the elevator penthouse—the space to enclose the machinery—that was undersized. I’m told it’s already been taken care of. But this is a troubled building and there are lots of parties who now have axes to grind.
Yes, from the descriptions it’s the penthouse (sorry, I’d noticed that detail before but for some reason never mentioned it). El hueco del ascensor often refers to the whole structure, shaft plus penthouse/underground motors/braking space, rather than only to the shaft; the shaft itself was designed in place, but the terrace’s blueprints hadn’t been modified to reflect where the motors had to go.
This is the kind of thing which is often added by the on-site crew; it can be a big problem if the terrace belongs to one of the flats as building the penthouse means that flat’s meters go down, and that the terrace isn’t as pretty as it was on the design. If it is designed for clotheslines (not the case in a building like that) or unaccesible to neighbors, not a problem. And yes, I mean “often”.
NETA: The original design for the terrace would never have the penthouse in the “primary prints” (those which get distributed to the trades teams), as one of the decisions the person designing the elevators has to make is which motors should they have and whether they go above or below.