Kingly Court Canopy
Kingly Court is a new galleried courtyard shopping development in the heart of London’s West End. Originally a timber warehouse arranged around a quiet paved mews, the building has seen various uses over the last century as offices, workshops and light industrial units. The new development consists of retail space over 3 floors with units ranging from large flagship fashion stores at ground floor level with their main frontage onto Carnaby Street, to small start-up units aimed at young graduate designers. The courtyard has established itself as a well known and popular West End destination and a temporary roof covering would give greater flexibility in the use of the court for year-round events.
The brief was to produce a temporary lightweight roof structure that can be easily erected, dismantled and stored. The roof would need to provide protection against the weather and to be both cost-effective and simple to manage by non-professional trained operatives without the use of specialist rigging equipment. Most importantly, the covered space must be safe for use by the public, particularly from a fire safety point of view.
Following analysis of a number of solutions the design consists of 3 lightweight inverted membrane cones supported from a system of cable ties and aluminium struts. This arrangement has the following advantages:
The roof is visually very light and enhances the industrial aesthetic of the building.
The cone profile enables maximum visibility from the upper levels of the Court.
The cone profile assists with smoke extract around the perimeters in case of fire.
The natural hanging shape of the cone assists in ease of attachment, deployment and dismantling. Each fabric section is initially hung from one central location and simply pulled into position using the cable system.
The design solution includes the following features:
3 no. fabric cones manufactured from Tenara, a hi-tech material superior to the basic PVC fabric and with better daylighting characteristics.
2 no. aluminium tri-cord trusses spanning 10m across the court to stabilise and support the roof. The trusses are detailed in 3 sections to aid transport and handling during erection.
The conical fabric roof sections are held in their 4 corners to specially fabricated steel brackets mounted on a plate and bolted to the perimeter beam.
Bracing of the roof uses stainless steel cables diagonally across each cone. These cables are above the roof plane and are not noticeable.
The fabric cones are tied down to their base assembly using paired vertical cables. The base connections are fixed below a cover plate in the paving and are therefore invisible.
Drainage of the roof is via a collection dish at the base of each cone and then via a spiral hose held between the paired tie-down cables. The hoses discharge below ground into new gulleys connected to the existing underground drainage system.
The roof solution is straightforward to erect or dismantle and retains the facility for each cone to be erected singly or in pairs as a partial cover.
