Scottish High International School, Gurugram Tensile Structure

A school with strong sport wants its courts available all year, not just in the mild months. Building an enclosed sports hall is expensive and slow; roofing an existing outdoor court with a tensile canopy gives most of the benefit — shade, rain cover, year-round use — quickly and at a manageable cost.

Ekra Decor delivered it as a complete job: survey and setting-out over the existing court, 3D structural and membrane design, fabrication of the galvanised frame and the fabric, and installation and tensioning, over about 700 m² in roughly 35 days.

The rule for a court cover is that nothing structural can stand in the playing area or the safety run-off. The canopy is a clear span — membrane and supporting steel crossing the whole court to columns set outside the margins — with the clear height set for a lofted ball and the backboards.

The fabric is form-found in 3D and pre-stressed into double curvature so it stays taut under wind uplift and drains cleanly, and it is chosen for translucency so the court gets bright, even, glare-free light. 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 the uplift that governs a light roof.

The steel is cut, welded and hot-dip galvanised in the workshop and the membrane is cut and welded into panels off-site, so the on-site programme is short: cast the footings clear of the court, erect the frame, run and tension the membrane.

On a running campus the work is fenced off and lifts and deliveries are timed around the school day, with the court handed back as a finished, covered facility in about 35 days.

The school gained a covered court that works through the summer and the monsoon, with even light and a clear playing volume — year-round sport at a fraction of the cost of an enclosed hall. Upkeep is limited to cleaning and periodic checks.

Ekra Decor builds sports-court and assembly covers for schools across Gurugram and Delhi-NCR. See more finished work on the projects page, or read about tensile structures in Gurgaon.