Tensile Structure in Chandigarh

Chandigarh is a planned city of wide, regular Sector plots, generous setbacks and a strong institutional and civic building stock — Panjab University, PEC, PGIMER, the Sector-17 and Sector-34 commercial districts, the IT Park, and the Industrial Area in Phases I and II. Across the tricity, Mohali adds a large IT and sporting footprint and Panchkula a commercial and residential one.

That built environment generates the usual tensile-structure demand — column-free covered parking on Sector plots and at malls and institutions, covered walkways across university and hospital campuses, all-weather sports-court covers, and courtyard and entrance canopies for commercial and hospitality buildings. The regular plot geometry of a planned city suits clean cantilever and hypar layouts particularly well.

Ekra Decor designs, engineers, fabricates and installs these structures for Chandigarh and the tricity from its Delhi NCR base. The company has not yet completed a documented project in Chandigarh itself; its nearest recorded work is in Panchkula, with further regional projects in Ludhiana and at Baddi. For the full technical background, see the tensile structure guide.

Chandigarh is inland, so the coastal-corrosion measures needed in Mumbai or Goa do not apply — standard hot-dip galvanising to IS 4759 / IS 2629 is adequate for the steel here. The full membrane comparison is on the membrane materials page.

• Site survey — measured levels, access, soil information and the wind exposure of the specific Sector or campus plot.
• Wind — the Shivalik-foothill gusts make uplift the governing load; the design wind pressure is taken for the actual site under IS 875 Part 3.
• Drainage — steep positive falls and generously sized valley and eaves gutters for the concentrated July–September monsoon, with an overflow route so a blocked outlet cannot pond the membrane.
• Form-finding — the membrane geometry is solved in 3D so its pre-stress is balanced and it stays taut — and, on this belt, so it sheds hail cleanly.
• Foundations — isolated footings to IS 456 on the firm alluvial ground typical of the city, sized against uplift and overturning rather than gravity.
• Existing-building tie-ins — where a canopy fixes back to a Sector building, the connections are designed with the building's structure checked for the added load.
• Installation access — crane positions and lay-down planned around the plot and, on a campus or a live commercial site, around operations.