BDA Housing, Alur, Bangalore Tensile Structure

On a large public housing scheme, the shared open spaces are what make it a community rather than just blocks of flats — but an uncovered gathering ground or market area is unusable in the middle of a Bangalore afternoon and during the monsoon. Roofing one with a tensile canopy fixes that for a fraction of the cost of building an enclosed community hall.

Ekra Decor delivered the structure as a turnkey job: survey and setting-out, 3D structural and membrane design, fabrication of the galvanised steel frame and the welded fabric, and installation and tensioning, over about 1,800 m² in roughly 90 days.

Covering a community space means a big clear span with as few columns on the ground as possible, so people can use the whole area flexibly. Ekra Decor sets the column grid to the edges and the circulation lines and spans the membrane between, keeping the usable floor open.

The fabric is form-found in 3D and pre-stressed into double curvature, which keeps a lightweight roof taut under wind uplift and drains the monsoon to defined points. Bangalore’s climate is moderate on temperature but the rains are long and heavy, so the fall and the drainage are sized for sustained rainfall. The steelwork is designed to IS 800 and the structure is checked for wind, rain and seismic loading to the applicable Indian codes, with the foundations sized against the uplift that governs a light roof.

A translucent membrane keeps the covered space daylit, so it does not feel enclosed — important for a public area used at all times of day.

The steel is cut, welded and hot-dip galvanised in the workshop and the membrane is cut to pattern and high-frequency welded into panels off-site, so the on-site work is erection rather than fabrication: cast the foundations, raise the frame, run and tension the membrane.

The roughly 90-day programme reflects the size of the structure and the coordination with a live residential scheme — access, deliveries and lifts planned around residents and other site works — with the space handed over as a finished, tensioned canopy.

The scheme gained a large covered shared space that residents can use through the heat of the day and the length of the monsoon — practical public infrastructure delivered at tensile-structure cost rather than building cost. Upkeep is limited to periodic cleaning and a routine check of the frame and cable tensions.

Ekra Decor builds large community and institutional canopies across India. See more finished work on the projects page, or read about tensile structures in Bangalore.