The intense local wind conditions predicted by wind tunnel studies around the UK’s tallest building at Canary Wharf lead architects Troughton McAslan and Partners to approach Architen Landrell. Their brief was to design a tensile fabric structure capable of withstanding the downdraughts and deflecting them over the water clear of pedestrians and diners on the quayside cafe of their office development.

The structure was conceived in model form and checked against the wind tunnel wind predictions which indicated down draught vortices between the McAslan building and the D7 tower block producing 2.5kN/m2 loadings on the canopy.

Installation access difficulties and the requirement that there be no site paint retouching of any kind mean that careful component planning was required. All spars were built with integral removable sling points and special slings and deployment cradles were made to allow a 150 ton crane working at the limit of its lateral range to slew the individual spars into place and the canopy was made in PVC coated polyester to make installation as easy as possible.

The financial collapse of American giant Olympia and York meant that all work stopped onthe next phase of the site and for 10 years the canopy remained largely unused and unmentioned.
In recent years as the remaining sites have been completed it has seen the full use for which it was intended.