Events & Activations
A freestanding wall in Procura 100mm extrusion with stretch fabric
A freestanding wall for Community and Paramount, built in Procura 100mm extrusion with a stretch fabric graphic solution. A wall that touches nothing but the floor has to find all of its stability in its own section depth and footing, and its back is as visible as its front.
What the job demanded
Freestanding structures are an engineering question wearing a graphics costume. There is no building to tie back to, so everything resisting a push, a lean or a draught has to come from the frame's own stiffness and whatever is holding it to the floor. Height makes that worse quickly: a tall panel is a long lever, and a shallow profile will visibly bow across a wide span even with nothing touching it. Because the wall stands in open floor, people walk behind it, which means the reverse is a finished face rather than a back-of-house surface, and there is nowhere to hide bracing, cabling or fixings. It also has to be built and struck by a crew working to a load-in schedule.
How it was produced
The wall was built in Procura 100mm extrusion. A 100 millimetre profile gives the beam depth to hold a long span straight, and it carries a silicone edge channel on both faces so a stretch fabric graphic can be tensioned on each side, with the frame concealed behind the image on both. A silicone bead sewn around the perimeter of each skin presses into the groove and pulls the fabric flat; the depth of the section also puts enough separation between the two faces that neither shows through to the other. Frames bolt together on a modular grid, so the wall is assembled from repeated components rather than made as one object, and feet were specified for the footprint and height rather than taken as standard. Skins come off and travel folded.
