KW Delhi 6, Raj Nagar Extension, Ghaziabad Tensile Structure

A retail-and-leisure development lives or dies on its shared space — the central street or court where people walk between shops, sit and eat, and decide to stay. If that space is open to the weather it only works for part of the year. Roofing it with a large tensile structure makes it an all-year destination, daylit and comfortable, without the cost and bulk of a solid roof over that span.

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 8,000 m² in roughly four and a half months.

A roof of this size is designed as a repeating grid: one form-found, double-curved membrane bay spanning between a line of steel frames, multiplied across the footprint. The column grid is set wide and aligned to the development’s circulation so the shopping and dining floor stays open, with support only where it can be absorbed into the architecture.

The double curvature pre-stresses each bay so it stays taut under wind uplift and sheds rain to defined valley and eaves lines — essential over a footprint this large in a Delhi-NCR monsoon. Ekra Decor designs the steelwork to IS 800 and checks the structure for wind, rain and seismic loading to the applicable Indian codes, with the foundations sized against uplift. A translucent membrane fills the space with even daylight and cuts the solar heat, so the covered street feels bright and open rather than enclosed.

Almost all the fabrication is off-site: identical steel frames cut, welded and galvanised in the workshop, and membrane panels cut and high-frequency welded to a repeating pattern, while the foundation grid is cast. On site the work is a repeating cycle — erect a line of frames, run and tension the bay, move on.

The roughly 4.5-month programme reflects the sheer footprint and the coordination with the wider development build, with the roof handed over as a finished, tensioned structure.

The development gained a large daylit roof over its central space, turning an open court into a comfortable, all-year shopping and dining street. It is a low-maintenance structure for its size — periodic cleaning and a routine inspection of the frame and tensions.

Ekra Decor builds large roofs for retail and mixed-use developments. See the related Raj Nagar, Ghaziabad project, more work on the projects page, or tensile structures in Ghaziabad.