Challenges solved by fabric structures

1. Speed of construction

Fabric buildings typically go up faster than wood, brick, concrete or steel build-ings. How much faster? If the weather holds, a crew can install a storage building in days or weeks, not months.

Some fabric buildings are prefabricated, so they just need to be transported and installed. These off-the-shelf structures come in set sizes. Once the buildings are on trucks and rolling to a site, a crew can put them up quickly. These fabric buildings tend to be hoop structures, meaning steel semi-circular frames go up and a covering (usually a single piece of fabric) is stretched over them.

Other tension fabric buildings are different in that they use solid steel frames. Steel frames such as these have a long track record for reliability and proven en-gineering. They also allow for a wide array of design options. Finally, these rigid structures provide a lot of advantages in terms of corrosion prevention and sup-port for equipment that facilitates loading and unloading.

Here are some factors a building owner should have in place to make the pro-cess of constructing a fabric building as smooth as possible:

• Own or lease the land.
• Install a concrete slab or foundation so crews can begin work right away when they arrive.
• Finalise the design and resist last minute changes.

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