Cabins on roof terraces and in walled gardens

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 here: it cuts the sun and it throws the lattice pattern that makes a plain roof terrace look like it belongs to the building underneath it.

The parapet and the slab

Cabins sit on galvanised steel feet that spread the load and lift the timber clear of any standing water after a rare rain. We keep the load path over walls rather than mid-span, and we ask for the slab detail before quoting anything with water in it.

Most modern Egyptian roofs are concrete and take a cabin easily. Older buildings in Zamalek or Heliopolis need looking at properly.

Dust, wind and the annual clean

Roofs collect dust. We specify smooth claddings that can be hosed, keep the cavity drained at the bottom, and put the plant where somebody can reach it with a brush. A terrace cabin that cannot be cleaned easily stops being cleaned.

In short

• Shade designed in from the start — a pergola or a mashrabiya screen, not an afterthought
• Galvanised steel feet spreading the load over walls, not mid-span
• Smooth hoseable cladding and a drained cavity, because roofs collect dust
• Slab checked before anything holding water goes up there