As part of the internationally renowned Hay Festival of Literacy & Arts, Tony Hogg Design were approached by our client to design, engineer and detail this structure for AHEC, the American Hardwood Export Council, who were a major sponsor of the festival.  In the centre of the site this canopy provided an eye catching feature over a range of American tulipwood furniture pieces designed to promote the use of American hardwoods and provide somewhere for the festival goers to relax.

As part of the brief, the canopy structure was also to use the American tulipwood.  This timber formed the four posts of the hypar and these were complemented with stainless steel rigging and tie back cables, which were staked to the ground.  In order to deal with the tensile loads of the membrane and to allow the structure to be merely 'staked out', it was necessary to have four cables to tie back each post, thus avoiding the need for any concrete foundations to be laid.

Each tulipwood post was fabricated in two pieces due to a requirement of the "Osmose Stabilising Oil" treatment process.  This meant the posts were designed with a splice joint in the middle - hence the 'feature band' around the middle of each post.  Due to the nature of the ground, we developed a threaded adjustment detail at the base of the posts to allow simple adjustment upon installation.