Tata Steel Services, Hyderabad Tensile Structure

An operating facility needs covered outdoor space for the usual reasons — parking or an assembly area kept out of the sun, a working or loading zone kept dry, a sheltered walk between buildings. A tensile canopy of about 1,200 m² is scaled to one of those, and adds it without a heavy building programme on a working site.

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 1,200 m² in roughly 65 days.

The canopy is designed around what happens underneath — parked cars, an assembly of people, a material flow — with the columns kept to the edges and out of the way and the membrane spanning the area overhead at a clear height set for the use.

The fabric is form-found in 3D and pre-stressed into double curvature so it stays taut under wind uplift and drains the monsoon to defined points clear of the area. 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 keeps the covered area bright while cutting the Hyderabad solar heat.

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 on-site work is limited to casting the foundations, erecting the frame and tensioning the membrane.

On a working facility the sequence is fenced and planned around site activity, with completed areas handed back as they are finished. The canopy went up over about 65 days.

The Tata Steel Services site gained a covered area that keeps parking, an assembly space or a working zone usable through the Hyderabad sun and monsoon, added without stopping operations. It is a low-maintenance structure — periodic cleaning and a routine check of the frame and tensions.

Ekra Decor builds covered parking and working-area canopies for corporate and industrial clients. See more finished work on the projects page, or read about tensile structures in Hyderabad.