Vasant Valley School, Basketball Court Tensile Structure

The school wanted its outdoor basketball court usable year round. In Delhi that means shade from a very strong summer sun and cover from the monsoon — but building a full indoor sports hall is expensive to construct and expensive to cool. A tensile roof over the existing court gives most of the benefit for a fraction of the cost and none of the running bill.

Ekra Decor took it on 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, all sequenced around school use. The roof covers about 1,250 m².

The governing rule for a court cover is that nothing structural can stand inside the playing area or its safety run-off. So the roof is designed as a clear span: the membrane and its supporting steel cross the whole court and land only on columns set outside the margins. The clear height is set from the game — a comfortable margin above a lofted shot and the top of the backboards.

The membrane is form-found 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 the membrane and tension it.

On a live school campus the work is fenced off and lifts and deliveries are timed to fit around teaching and pick-up. The court was handed back as a finished, covered facility in about 35 days.

The school gained a covered basketball court that works through the summer and the monsoon, with even light and a clear, full-height playing volume — at far less cost to build and run than an enclosed hall. The structure needs only routine cleaning and periodic checks.

Ekra Decor roofs sports courts, stands and auditoriums and works extensively with schools; see the projects page for more campus work, or tensile structures in Delhi.