Location: Abbotsford, Johannesburg · System: Adjustable Louvre
The brief
The house opens onto a large-format tiled patio, with artificial lawn, a playhouse and a slide immediately beyond it. The tiles held the afternoon heat and the sliding doors took the sun full on.
Cover over the patio has to come without walling it off from the garden beyond it.
What we built
An adjustable louvre roof on a charcoal frame with white blades, covering the full width of the sliding doors and the tiled area in front of them. The open side faces the lawn and stays open — no blinds, no screening, nothing between the seating and the play area.
Closed blades keep the tiles out of direct sun, which is what stops a large-format tiled patio behaving like a hotplate by mid-afternoon.
Louvre Awnings covers how it is built; Johannesburg East & Kew has more of it nearby.
Shade that does not become a wall
The temptation on a family patio is to enclose it — blinds down the open side, screening at the ends. It makes the space more controllable and less useful.
Here the brief pushed the other way. Cover the floor and the glazing; leave every sight line into the garden untouched. Adjustable blades make that possible, because the roof itself does the work that a side blind would otherwise be asked to do.
The specification behind it
- Adjustable aluminium louvre roof — charcoal frame, white blades
- Full-width cover to the sliding doors and tiled patio
- Open aspect retained to the garden side
- All-round gutter with downpipe outlets set on site
- 15-year guarantee on aluminium, 10-year on Chromadek®
Where the downpipes go on a family patio
Downpipe position is normally an aesthetic decision. With small children it is a practical one: a downpipe discharging onto artificial lawn makes a permanent wet patch, and one landing in a walkway becomes something to trip over.
We set the outlets on site with the garden in front of us, which is the only place that decision can sensibly be made.
If you’re considering the same
Tell us what happens on the other side of the patio edge — lawn, play equipment, a pool gate. It changes where water is allowed to land.
See more of our Johannesburg East work.
