ideas for shade

summer is soon upon us and i'd like to begin enjoying the roof deck that i finished building last summer. the deck is very exposed and faces south so is very hot and essentially unusable during the day. Because of height restrictions, it is extremely difficult to build a permenant structure any higher than what currently exisits.

i have considered attaching a retractable awning to the high wall on the south side of the deck but since the wall is only 6 feet tall there would be insufficient head room under the awning. i suggested to the manufacturer that i pitch the awning up as shown. they say that would not be structurally sound.

i've tried tilting umbrellas but they dont look great and it is difficult to maintain shade as the sun moves during the day. i know it is a tough question, but does anybody have an idea of how i can get lots of shade without building a permanent structure?

thanks

-steve

Steve,
I used to work for a couple of architects in arizona. Check out this web page. http://www.ghbruce.com/ how about using fabric structures like this instead of an awning like you had shown. we used them alot on custom residential and larger scale comercial projects.

Jeff

I'm trying to talk my wife into a [url href=http://www.wogg-pavilion.com/]Wogg Pavilion[/url]. It won't help with the issue of the sun moving over the course of the day, however.

http://www.overstock.com/cgi-bin/d2.cgi?PAGE=PROFRAMEPROD_ID=1736555

http://www.overstock.com/cgi-bin/d2.cgi?PAGE=PROFRAMEPROD_ID=1736556

similar to what Jeff posted.

thanks everyone for such good ideas. i'm very intrigued by the shade sail idea. the one thing i dont love is having a permanent shade structure. a great thing about a roof deck is the exposure to the night sky. i did some searching and found this one austrailian website that offers a retractable shade sail: http://www.stormsafesails.com/. i was thinking that a triangular sail with the base attached to the wall and the tip on a high single pole opposite would be an ideal solution. unfortunately, i've emailed the folks a few times and have had no reply. any ideas on where else i might look for such a thing? other thoughts?

-steve

p.s. i also like the Wogg a lot but think it might be overly cumbersome for this application.