Rooftop and garden saunas for Cairo villas and terraces

Shade is a structural decision

A cabin in full Cairo sun is a cabin nobody uses before nine in the evening. We design the shade at the same time as the cabin — a pergola, a mashrabiya screen, the building's own parapet — because shade cannot be added convincingly afterwards.

A carved screen does two jobs: it cuts the sun and it throws the lattice pattern that makes a plain roof look as if it belongs to the building underneath.

What the roof has to carry

Most modern Egyptian roofs are reinforced concrete and take a cabin without argument. We still set it on a galvanised steel frame that rests on the beams or bearing walls below, so no point load lands in the middle of a slab and the timber floor stands clear of any water after one of Cairo's rare storms.

Older buildings in Zamalek, Garden City or Heliopolis are a different matter, and anything holding water — a plunge tub, a basin — needs the structure checked before we price it.

Dust, wind and cleaning

Roofs collect dust. We specify smooth claddings that can be hosed down, drain the ventilated cavity at the bottom, and put the plant where somebody can reach it with a brush. A terrace cabin that is hard to clean stops being cleaned, and then stops being used.

Coast and desert edge

On the Sahel and the Red Sea the same cabin gets A4 stainless fixings, sealed end grain and a deeper cavity against salt; in Sheikh Zayed and 6th of October, on the desert edge, washable pre-filters on anything with a fan. The quote names the difference rather than hiding it.

Budget and delivery

Indicative bands run from about 195 thousand EGP for a compact terrace cabin to 610 thousand for a six-person cabin with glass and a carved screen, supplied and installed; a roof position adds 45 to 120 thousand for the frame and handling. The cabin is dry-assembled in our Istanbul factory, shipped to Alexandria or Port Said and lifted into place by our crew. Send a photo of the roof and the stair or lift for a first figure.

In short

• Shade designed in from the start — a pergola or a mashrabiya screen
• Galvanised frame bearing on beams or walls, never mid-slab
• Hoseable cladding and a drained cavity, because roofs collect dust
• Marine fixings on the coast, pre-filters on the desert edge