Swara Enterprises, Diu Food Court Tensile Structure

An open-air food court only succeeds if people want to stay in it. That means shade and rain cover over the whole area — stalls and seating alike — without closing the space in, because a sealed, air-conditioned hall loses the easy, outdoor feel that makes a food court pleasant. A large tensile roof is the standard answer.

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 5,000 m² in roughly six weeks.

Covering a food court means a big clear span with the columns pushed to the perimeter and the circulation lines, so stalls and seating can be laid out freely underneath and rearranged later. The membrane and its supporting steel cross the area in repeating bays.

The fabric is form-found in 3D and pre-stressed into double curvature so it stays taut under wind uplift and drains cleanly to defined edges. On a coastal site the specification steps up: the steel is hot-dip galvanised, exposed fittings are stainless, and the membrane is a PVDF- or PTFE-coated fabric chosen for UV and salt resistance. Ekra Decor designs the steelwork to IS 800 and takes wind and rain loads to the applicable Indian codes, with the foundations sized for the wind uplift that governs a large light roof by the sea.

The steel is cut, welded and hot-dip galvanised in the workshop and the membrane is cut and high-frequency welded into panels off-site, so the canopy arrives as a set of prepared components. On site the crew casts the foundations, erects the repeating frames, and runs and tensions the membrane bay by bay.

Prefabrication is what makes a 5,000 m² roof achievable in about six weeks — site time goes into assembly, not manufacture.

Diu gained a large covered food court that stays cool, dry and bright but open and ventilated — the kind of space people are happy to sit in for a while. Maintenance is limited to cleaning the membrane and periodic checks of the frame and tensions.

Ekra Decor builds large roofs for food courts, markets and dining areas. See the related Swara Enterprises promenade pavilion, more work on the projects page, or tensile structures in Diu.