Above-pool shade project shields school swim team

Hoover Architectural Products, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., took poolside shade to a new level—literally over and above—to protect the swim team at Pine Crest School in Boca Raton. The 8,846-square-foot shade structure, fabricated in two parts, comprises 288 yards of fabric and shades an eight-lane pool, keeping the swimmers 12–15 degrees cooler and out of sunburn risk.

It was the second pool the company had shaded for the school, the first being 25 years ago and designed more like an awning, with a lot of framing, says company president Matt Carroll. The client originally requested the same structure for the recent redo, but the giant tensioned shade design won out.

A close up of the supports of a gray shade sail, from below

Chief among the project’s challenges was navigating the foundation around underground obstructions such as pool pumps, plumbing and lifts. The columns and truss were installed using a 250-ton crane.

“The truss had to be fabricated as a single piece in the parking lot,” state the notes on the project’s entry into the International Achievement Awards, “then carefully transported and flown between two preset columns, with an extremely narrow tolerance required to ensure a precise fit.”

Pulling the large, heavy cover across the pool area during its installation also presented its own challenge, but the resulting “big win,” Carroll says, is the skin cancer prevention for the students underneath it year-round.

Images: Hoover Architectural Products