South Pointe Junior High Shade Structure — Phoenix, AZ
At South Pointe Junior High in Phoenix, Total Shade built three structure types on one campus: hip-roof canopies over the lunch court, tensioned fabric shade sails across the play area, and a steel cantilever cover at the building edge. The mix was deliberate. A grades 6-8 charter campus packs a lot of activity into a tight footprint, so each space got the form that fit it rather than one canopy stamped everywhere. The knitted HDPE fabric blocks roughly 90-99% of UV, and every frame was engineered to Arizona code for the open desert exposure this site sits on.
The Shade Structures We Built at South Pointe Junior High
Three families went up at South Pointe because no single one solved every space. Over the open lunch court we set hip-roof canopies, the four-slope peaked form that shares its load across a few interior posts and sheds monsoon rain off four faces instead of ponding overhead. Hip bays cover a large open footprint cheaper than any other shape, which is why they carry the highest-traffic area on campus at a 10-14 ft post height that clears picnic tables and a moving lunch crowd.
The play area took a different answer. Where posts could not land in the middle of the activity space, tensioned fabric shade sails floated cover with anchors pushed out to the perimeter, leaving the surface open underneath. Sails read lighter and cost less per anchor, and their pretensioned curve keeps the fabric taut against the flutter that wears a cover fastest. At the building edge, a steel cantilever cover reached shade out over a walk-up zone with no column blocking the doorway path. Spans across the three forms ran roughly 20-40 ft, with footings sized to this open site’s wind exposure.
Cooling Play and Lunch Areas at Phoenix Schools
Cooling a junior high campus is about surface temperature as much as comfort. Play and lunch equipment in open Phoenix sun bakes past 150 degrees by midday, and a cover that blocks 90-99% of UV pulls that surface back into a usable range while cutting the radiant load on kids during recess and lunch. For an 11-to-14-year-old who logs years of recess on the same yard, that daily UV reduction is a measurable safety gain, not a frill. The play-area sails were sized to oversail the equipment so the cover still lands on it when the low afternoon sun drops and shade shifts off the footprint.
Engineering carried the rest. South Pointe sits on open ground with little around it to break the wind, so the frames were built to Arizona building code and ASCE 7 design wind speeds in the roughly 90-115 mph Valley range, with powder-coated steel and stamped drawings for the permit set. Around the play structures, posts and footings stayed outside the 6 ft CPSC fall zone — clearance that code-compliant school work leads with, not bolts on afterward. The honest caveats hold here too: knitted HDPE covers commonly carry 10-15 year warranties and Phoenix UV sits at the demanding end, so a re-cover down the road is planned maintenance, not failure, and Valley dust on the weave means an occasional rinse. This install is one of many across commercial shade in Phoenix.
Project Location & Directions
Total Shade LLC — 2331 W. Holly Street, Phoenix, AZ 85009 · (602) 265-0905
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