A colorful vision is brought to life at the Top Ryde Shopping Centre with Ronstan Tensile Architecture.
When the Top Ryde Shopping Centre was upgraded with a new major supermarket on the first floor, it was necessary for the main shopping centre to be linked with the car park, in order to shelter pedestrians from weather, and create a bold sense of entry into the shopping centre.
To create the connection an outdoor travelator was installed between the two structures, above an open-air concourse. A canopy has been installed over it, which creates its own unique environment and a colorful experience within the shopping centre.
This canopy envelopes the travelator completely, and stretches between two large steel rings, which are attached to the building facades. Colored LED lights are projected onto the screen, creating a striking visual purposefully designed by the architect.
Ronstan Tensile Architecture contributed as a tensile solution specialist to assist the architect (I2C) with concept design and to suggest suitable support structures with the assistance of our engineers who liaised with the building engineers.
The canopy is constructed from Hiraoka PVC coated PES and is banded with high and regular translucency fabric that cuts across the regular warp seams in the canopy. This choice of materials offers additional daytime playfulness in the visual of the design. The canopy is externally enveloped in a double helix spiral of cables; intended to act as a trellis frame in the future.
The canopy has Ronstan stainless steel catenary edge cables spanning the free edges of the canopy and it is clamped to steelwork using rope track extrusions. Extrusions were conically rolled to match the clamp plates on the CHS steelwork rings. Cover flaps ensure a watertight edge at the building facades.
Ronstan project lead Paul Joseph remarked about this project, “The most difficult part of the structure was that the canopy ties into the two adjoining buildings. An accurate site survey was required to obtain an accurate starting point for detailing. This included an extrapolation from the survey of façade back to the structure behind the façade.”
The resulting travellator canopy was so successful in its design, it was a winner of the “Award of Excellence”, LSAA 2018 Design Awards Cat 1 Small Structures.
All Photos by Archishot