Fairmont Austin: Eight Motorized Sun Shades on a Rooftop Terrace, Four Years and Counting
The pool terrace at Fairmont Austin sits high above Red River Street with the downtown skyline on three sides. It also faces the Texas sun with nothing between the cabanas and the afternoon glare. The hotel asked for shade that would disappear when it was not needed, keep the view when it was, and stand up to wind on an open rooftop. Eight motorized shades went in during one week in April 2022. They are still the shades the hotel calls us to service in 2026.
What we built
- Customer: Fairmont Austin, Austin, Texas. The rooftop pool and cabana terrace.
- 8 motorized sun shade panels in black 95 percent shade mesh with slate gray tracks, mounted up under the concrete soffit so the housings vanish when the shades are up.
- Sizes: from about 135 to 154 inches wide, each 150 inches (12 feet 6 inches) tall. About 1,200 square feet of shade.
- Posts: 12 aluminum 4x4 posts, 162 inches (13 feet 6 inches) tall, set between the terrace deck and the soffit to carry the tracks where the architecture gave us nothing to mount to.
- Controls: two 16-channel remotes plus a wall remote, so the pool staff can drop one bay or the whole terrace.
- No doors and no clear vinyl. Shade and airflow only.
- Shade units: motorized units built to our measurements. Design, posts, installation and service by our own crew.
Before and after
Before, the terrace was a concrete deck between round steel columns, open to the sky on the south and west. The columns are wrapped in metal and the ceiling is a finished soffit, so there was no header to hang from. We set twelve posts, hung the shades from the soffit between them, and the terrace reads the same as it did, with the sun under control.
Six steps, November 2020 to April 2022
- November 2020: first design and quote. The hotel asked for motorized shade and we drew the layout that winter.
- November 9, 2021: the quote refreshed when the project came back to life a year later.
- December 27, 2021: deposit received.
- January 11, 2022: design consultation on the roof with our installer, who measured every bay and set the post locations.
- January 25, 2022: into manufacturing.
- April 7, 2022: installed and signed off. The hotel closed the terrace for the install week and reopened with the shades working.
What made this one different
Height and wind. A rooftop in downtown Austin gets gusts that a ground-floor patio never sees, so the shades run in side tracks that hold the fabric at the edges instead of letting it swing. The panels are 12 feet 6 inches tall, which is at the upper end for a single motorized unit, and every one of the twelve posts had to be plumb between a finished deck and a finished soffit without touching either one more than necessary.
The other part is what happened after. The hotel has had us back for service checks in 2025 and 2026. Each time the fix was the power supply to a motor, not the shade. Four summers of Texas sun, and the fabric and tracks are the originals.
Specs
| System | Motorized sun shade, side-track retention, 8 units |
| Fabric | Black 95 percent shade mesh |
| Largest unit | 154 inches wide by 150 inches tall |
| Posts | 12 aluminum 4x4, 162 inches, powder coated |
| Wind rating | Warrantied to 65 mph, deployed. |
| Warranty | 5 years on motors, 3 years on workmanship |
| Lead time | About 8 weeks from deposit |
| Installation | Our own crew. Outlet locations only; we do not do the electrical. |
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