Ludhiana Project Tensile Structure

In a city with Ludhiana’s summers, an uncovered forecourt, courtyard or working area is close to unusable through the middle of the day for months. A tensile canopy of about 500 m² shades that space and keeps it dry in the monsoon, on a light structure that a commercial site can add without a major build.

Ekra Decor delivered it as a turnkey job: survey, 3D structural and membrane design, fabrication of the galvanised steel frame and the membrane, and installation and tensioning, in about 30 days. The client and the exact use are not in the archive, so this page keeps those general.

The membrane is form-found so it sits in double curvature, which pre-stresses the fabric so it stays taut, resists wind uplift, and drains to defined points rather than ponding. It is carried on a galvanised steel frame with the columns kept to the perimeter.

Wind uplift governs a light roof; the Punjab monsoon is designed for in the fall and the drainage. Ekra Decor designs the steelwork to IS 800 and checks the canopy for wind, rain and seismic loading to the applicable Indian codes, with the foundations sized for uplift and overturning. A translucent membrane keeps the covered area bright while cutting the fierce summer solar heat.

The steel is welded and hot-dip galvanised in the workshop and the membrane is cut and welded into panels off-site, so the canopy arrives ready to erect. On site the crew casts the foundations, erects the frame and tensions the membrane.

With fabrication done off-site, the installation ran to about 30 days from first survey to a finished, tensioned canopy.

The site gained a mid-sized canopy that makes a forecourt, courtyard or working area usable through the Ludhiana summer and monsoon, built without a long programme. It needs only periodic cleaning and a routine tension check.

Ekra Decor builds commercial canopies and covered parking and forecourts across North India. See more finished work on the projects page, or read about tensile structures in Ludhiana.