Update on architectural fabrics

Introduction Over the last ten years there has been a rapid increase in the architectural use of fabrics. They are mainly used to provide lightweight, large‐span, translucent roofs which are economical and visually exciting. The structures range in scale from pavilions and canopies in the park through to covered retail malls and stadium roofs of 10 acres. The expertise in the design and execution of these structures originally lay with a small number of specialist engineers and fabricators. This expertise has now broadened and, with increasing use of computers for processing the complex geometry and with improvements in the fabrics themselves, it is likely that they will continue to proliferate.