Company:
Uni-Systems, LLC; Eide Industries
Project Details
Fabric 1
Tenara 4T40
Producer/Manufacturer:
Sefar
Engineer Company 1
EOR – Nabin Youssef Associates; Eide Canopy – Sullaway Engineering, Inc.; Enfold Retractable - GLR Engineers
Design Company
Structure - Eide Industries; Retractable Canopy – Uni-Systems, LLC
Architect Company
Gensler
Fabrication Company
Structure - Eide Industries; Retractable Canopy – Uni-Systems, LLC
Subcontractor Company
Fabric – Lightweight Manufacturing
Installation Company
Eide Industries, Inc.
Please describe the project specifications
The Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills hotel features an al fresco bar/café called The Rooftop by JG. Perched 12 stories above the intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica Boulevards, The Rooftop by JG serves up luxurious views of the L.A. skyline and Hollywood Hills, in addition to their delicious food. Previously existing umbrella-style canopies offered only scattered coverage and were time-consuming to individually open and close, while their stanchions impeded foot traffic and obstructed the panoramic sightlines. The hotel owners wanted a single retractable canopy solution that would not only protect nearly the entire seating area from sun and rain, but do so with minimal impact on views—all at the touch of a button.
Architectural experts at Gensler conceived of a structural steel trellis framework with an awning over the rooftop deck that elegantly follows the Art Deco-inspired curved floor plan of the hotel’s northeast side. Our companies were contracted to design, detail, fabricate and erect the structural steel trellis and supply an En-Fold® retractable canopy system to be installed atop the trellis structure. We designed and fabricated a 24’ long extension by 83’ wide retractable canopy spanning six drive beams, sporting five Sefar® Tenara® 4T40 ePTFE fabric panels (25+ years of life expectancy), and coated with Sherwin-Williams Acrolon™ marine-grade paint in custom Oyster White.
What is unique or complex about the project?
A typical En-Fold® system is rectangular in shape as viewed in plan. However, the hotel owners were committed to reflecting both the curved trellis structure and the curved floor plan at the east end of the building in the canopy system as well. In the traditional En-Fold system the edge ropes along the sides of the fabric canopy are in perfect alignment so they do not impart any unwanted side load into the drive mechanism. We determined that the curved end feature would impart significant side load into the system when fully tensioned. We had to invent a way to maintain the straight pull of the edge ropes with a curved end profile. We started by consulting our structural engineer and fabric engineer to verify the system could handle any added wind loads and to determine how the tensioned fabric would behave with trapezoidal end shapes. To achieve a curved end, we invented a new edge rope connection bracket that allows us to essentially build a typical rectangular system with adjoined fabric beam extensions cantilevering out at varying distances, effectively maintaining the system’s signature bi-axial fabric tensioning while also providing a seamlessly graceful, curved appearance.
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