Landmark, Nepal Tensile Structure

A retail arcade only earns its rent if people walk through it, and they only walk through it if it is comfortable — out of the sun, out of the rain, and bright enough that the shopfronts look inviting. The brief for an arcade roof is to deliver all of that over the full length of the street without darkening the units below.

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 929 m² in roughly six weeks.

An arcade roof is a linear structure: a form-found, double-curved membrane spanning across the street between the two rows of units, repeating bay by bay along its length. The support lands on or against the building lines, so the walking surface and the shopfronts stay completely clear.

The double curvature pre-stresses the membrane so it holds its shape under wind uplift and drains to defined edges along the building lines rather than sheeting onto shoppers. Ekra Decor designs the steelwork to IS 800 and checks the structure for wind and rain loading to the applicable codes, and — for a project in Nepal — assesses the seismic actions carefully given the region’s high seismic hazard. A translucent membrane keeps the arcade bright and the shopfront displays readable.

The steel is cut, welded and hot-dip galvanised in the workshop and the membrane is cut and high-frequency welded into panels, so what ships to the site is a set of prepared components rather than raw material — important for an export project where on-site fabrication capacity may be limited.

On site the crew casts the foundations along the building lines, erects the repeating frames and runs and tensions the membrane bay by bay, completing the arcade roof in about six weeks.

The development gained a covered arcade that trades through any weather, with even daylight and well-lit shopfronts. The roof is low-maintenance — periodic cleaning and a routine check of the frame and tensions.

Ekra Decor builds roofs for retail arcades, markets and streets in India and abroad. See more finished work on the projects page.