ILBS Hospital, Basant Kunj Tensile Structure

On a continuously operating hospital campus, the outdoor gaps between buildings are used at every hour — by patients who may be frail, by families waiting, by staff and porters moving equipment. Leaving those routes and waiting areas exposed to the Delhi sun and monsoon is a real problem for a clinical site. A tensile canopy fixes it fast, without the noise, dust and duration of a conventional build next to wards.

Ekra Decor’s scope covered the structure end to end: 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 2,250 m² in roughly 40 days.

Whether the structure covers a walkway, a waiting area or a drop-off, the design priorities on a hospital site are clear width, clear height and clean lines — routes have to stay wide enough for wheelchairs, trolleys and stretchers, so columns go to the edges and the span goes overhead.

The membrane is form-found in 3D and pre-stressed into double curvature so it stays taut under wind uplift and drains the monsoon to defined points, away from entrances and walking surfaces. Ekra Decor designs the steelwork to IS 800 and checks the structure for wind, rain and seismic loading to the applicable Indian codes, with foundations sized against uplift. The connection details and finishes are kept simple and cleanable, which suits a healthcare environment.

A translucent membrane keeps covered routes and waiting areas daylit and legible rather than dim — better for wayfinding and for patients who spend time under it.

Almost all the work is off-site: steel cut, welded and hot-dip galvanised in the workshop, membrane cut and high-frequency welded into panels. That keeps the on-site programme to erection — foundations, frame, membrane, tension — and keeps noise, dust and vehicle movement near the wards to a minimum.

The work is fenced and sequenced around hospital operations, with completed lengths handed back as they are finished. The full structure went up in about 40 days.

ILBS gained a large covered area that keeps patients, families and staff out of the sun and the rain as they move around and wait — built quickly and cleanly alongside a working hospital. Maintenance is limited to periodic cleaning and a routine check of the frame and tensions.

Ekra Decor builds covered walkways and waiting-area canopies for hospitals and institutions. See more finished work on the projects page, or read about tensile structures in Delhi.