Rooftop Swimming Pools in Dubai: Engineering, Design, and What It Really Takes

The rooftop swimming pool is certainly a lovely thing to watch. In Dubai, the city skyline spreads out in all directions with the desert, the sea, or the glittering towers of the business district as a backdrop. Adding a rooftop pool turns a regular roof deck into a truly unique feature. It is also among the most difficult technical issues faced by the swimming pool builders in Dubai. Green Creation is a well-established company in Dubai for designing and building rooftop pools. The company’s engineering team understands how to handle the unique structural, waterproofing, and operational challenges of projects with elevated pools and has the know-how to complete them to the highest standard.

THE STRUCTURAL CHALLENGE

The structural challenge of a rooftop pool begins with a basic fact: water is extremely heavy. A swimming pool with a water depth of 1.5 meters contains water weighing about 1,500 kilograms per square meter of floor area. A small rooftop pool, 5 meters by 3 meters, holds about 22,500 kilograms of water—more than 22 tonnes—not counting the weight of the pool structure itself. The roof structure of the building must be able to support this load. This usually means the building’s structural engineer has to be consulted and the roof slab, beams, and columns underneath have to be proven adequate—or strengthened. This structural verification may point out that some buildings (especially older buildings that were never designed to support a pool on the roof) will require a lot of extra structural work before they can add a pool on the roof.

Green Creation works with structural engineers in the design stage of each rooftop pool project to ensure the building structure is adequate. The company’s engineering team is preparing pool structural drawings that interface properly with the existing building structure to distribute the pool loads properly.

THE WATERPROOFING IMPERATIVE

A pool on a roof without waterproofing is not only inconvenient, it’s a disaster waiting to happen. Any water leaked from the pool shell or around it will drain into the building below. This will damage the roof slab, get into the floors below, ruin finishes and furniture, and possibly do structural damage by rusting the steel reinforcement. This is why the protection requirements for a pool on a roof must be much stronger than a pool on the ground. All rooftop pool work requires a multi-layer waterproofing system. This system typically involves a waterproofing mortar being poured on the pool shell and the deck that surrounds it, then a sheet or liquid-applied membrane, and finally a protected screed. The method uses a system within a system, creating multiple separate barriers to prevent water from entering. Waterproofed not only the pool shell but also the whole rooftop area within the pool surround zone. The system covers the drain detail at the edge of the pool, where the pool surround meets any upstanding walls and the drainage outlets, which return water from the roof to the building drainage system.

WEIGHT MANAGEMENT IN ROOFTOP POOL DESIGN

Managing the total weight of the pool and its surrounds is an important design factor because rooftop pool projects can be hard on the structure. The people who work at Green Creation are constantly looking for ways to cut down on dead loads without lowering quality or appearance. When building a pool shell, lightweight aggregate concrete can be used in some cases. This makes the concrete shell lighter than a normal mix. You can choose lightweight decking systems, such as wood-look composite decking on a light aluminum subframe, for the pool surround instead of heavy stone or concrete steps. Instead of full-depth yard soil, lightweight substrates can be used for planting.

ACCESS AND LOGISTICS

Building a rooftop pool also makes it hard to reach the pool. It is traditional to bring the drills and concrete tools down to ground level. Getting concrete, tiles, steel, and tools to a roof takes a lot of planning, especially if the building is already occupied. Green Creation’s project managers develop detailed logistical plans for rooftop pool projects that include the best way to get to the site, the lifting tools that will be needed and the best order for deliveries so that building residents are not too bothered.

THE RESULT: SOMETHING TRULY EXCEPTIONAL

Hard to do, but rooftop pools are some of the most satisfying projects Green Creation work on. Once a rooftop pool is complete and shining in the Dubai sun with the skyline mirrored in the water, the final product makes all the engineering issues worth it.

Building a rooftop pool in Dubai requires a contractor with the right combination of experience, planning skills, and construction know-how. All of these are in Green Creation. If you live in Dubai, the people at www.green-creation.com can realize your dream of having a rooftop pool.

Call / WhatsApp: ☎ +971 50 948 4081
Email: info@green-creation.com