Boston Ivy draped over a huge pergola covering a grand outdoor dining area hanging with romantic tendrils over a 14m long Swamp Kauri table for truly epic feasts. A decade ago , when the ivy was just around the uprights to the pergola we covered the area with a simple draped mesh to give shade to the diners.

Now the desire was for a waterproof cover, somehow suspended above all the glorious growth. The brief was that we  should not remove any of the growth. The scale of the area made any monopitch solution unworkable.

So we suggested a multi gable approach running into internal gutters, this broke the structure into 5 gable roofs approx 4.5m square. To achieve this we custom fabricated box gutters standing on short legs that mounted to the original Ivy covered cross beams . For the gable ridges we fabricated taller frames with internal height adjusters on the legs to tension the PVC between each bay. All frames were test fitted then sent to the powder coaters.

The PVC membrane sections also had perimeter wire rope into stud swages that were fitted into the box gutters to tension the edges and bolt ropes to secure the covers to the frames. Terminal turnbuckles were used to tension both the wire terminals and the end frames. We were pleased with the results and the structure has seen some heavy weather since going up in December 2024.

The site is right on the cliff edge looking out over Tasman Bay, a truly majestic site .