IGI Airport, Terminal 2 Arrival Passenger Walkway Canopy · New Delhi

The brief was a functional one: give arriving passengers a continuously covered path from the Terminal 2 building to the ground-transport kerb, on a frontage that is fully exposed to Delhi’s sun and monsoon. It had to be done without reducing the usable width of the walkway and without a forest of columns breaking up the pedestrian flow at the busiest point of the terminal.

Ekra Decor’s scope covered the structure end to end — a site survey and measured layout, the 3D membrane form-finding and structural design, fabrication of the steelwork and the membrane panels, and the on-site erection, connection and tensioning. The finished canopy roofs about 8,200 sq ft (≈760 m²) of walkway as a single architectural element rather than a series of separate shelters, so there is no gap where a passenger steps back out into the open.

Its purpose is straightforward and permanent: weather cover, glare control and a clear visual line along the arrivals frontage, in a material and geometry that suit an airport’s exposure and lifespan expectations.

The governing constraint was the walkway itself. To keep it column-free, the roof is carried on a single line of raking steel columns set behind the pedestrian route, with the membrane and its supporting steel cantilevering forward over the footpath and the first kerbside lane. That puts the load path off to one side and leaves the walking surface completely open.

The membrane is form-found in 3D and built up from double-curved panels. Double curvature is what lets a lightweight fabric roof stay rigid: it pre-stresses the membrane so it holds its shape under wind uplift instead of fluttering, and it directs rainwater to defined low points rather than pooling. The bay rhythm and the low pitch were set to read cleanly against the terminal frontage while still shedding a monsoon downpour.

As standard for Ekra Decor, the steelwork is designed to IS 800 and the structure is checked for wind, rain and — where relevant — seismic loading to the applicable Indian codes, with the foundations sized against uplift and overturning rather than gravity alone, which is the governing case for a light tensile roof.

Terminal 2 operates around the clock, so the arrivals frontage could not be closed and there was no room for a fabrication yard on site. The steel was cut, welded and hot-dip galvanised in the workshop, and the membrane panels were cut and high-frequency welded off-site, while the foundations were being cast at the terminal. On-site work was then limited to erecting the frame, hanging the panels and tensioning the membrane.

Crane lifts, material deliveries and the tensioning sequence were all planned around continuous passenger movement and airport security access. The work zone was fenced and kept clear of the arrivals flow throughout, and the canopy was handed over — steel, membrane and edge details complete — at the end of the 40-day window.

See more finished work on the projects page, or read about tensile structures in Delhi.