Sophisticated, simple, open, and inspirational shade and
rain shelter. With single-panel designs up to 900 square
feet, and multi-panel designs that can just keep
tessellating.
RainShades
are really freaking cool.
Here is why:
They make sense
Sculptural shade shelters that enable a whole new
way to see, protect, and enjoy your home.
Dry beneath them! Yes, really dry. The membrane is a
completely non-porous fiber-reinforced film, so they
let no water through at all.
Permanent & Temporary. No poured concrete, no major
alterations to your property.
Lightweight, safe, totally weather resistant.
20 year architectural membrane. Leave-up protection
from sun, rain, and big wind without drama.
Designed with analog and digital compute, crafted by
hand, custom for your property.
Top to bottom, beginning to end, we've developed a
unique, mature process to make these possible.
Transformative sculptural shelters
A new way to live outside and enjoy your property
Haven't I seen these before?
In short, no.
Well…you haven't really seen these. At airports, and
stadiums and ridiculously expensive public structures, sure.
For people's homes? Nope. It's actually the core idea behind
these, and why these are so superior to your normal shade
sail solutions. When we first started designing these, we
did it because the options available for residential tensile
architecture, they really aren't there in an attainable way.
What is available is an easy-up, or a costco "car cover", or
a pergola, or some pre-made mesh shade shapes that don't fit
any particular property. If you've ever tried to make one of
these go tight between some trees you thought would be
convenient, I'm betting it was, more difficult to
fit-to-plan than expected.
This is really where the problems start. You have cheap
made-to-break/deteriorate materials that don't stand up to
wind. Or, you have floppy, mildew-ridden sun mesh that, IF
you can get it to go tight, won't stay tight, and drips most
of the water on the middle of the area when it rains. Or!
you have multi-million dollar airport terminals and
stadiums.
Tensile architecture, but for actual people
So where is this amazing membrane architecture for the
regular people? No one (I mean it, I know people, and I've
been to the trade shows!) is making them — for good reasons
we can discuss later. The economics are a huge barrier,
which is why you only see them when huge dollars are
involved.
Enter WindFire Designs RainShades.
They are big, beautiful, ecologically excellent, have a
cradle-to-cradle bronze certification on the membrane that
lasts for 20 years with some minor tweaks and cleaning
involved. They are dry beneath, silent, they don't flap
around, you can hang hammocks in them, you can cover your
pools that suffer from laser-sun, things under them are in
suspended animation like a pole barn, because they basically
stay untouched by the weather. You can light them at night,
project mario kart on them, change their color by wifi, and
they are gorgeous. You could take them down in about an
hour. The double one you see for instance, our son, Otto,
named it Flutterby. It's collectively 1500 sq feet. Uses 11
poles, and can be taken down in 30 minutes, and can be
leave-no-trace in about 3 hours. Or it can be left up,
untouched, for 20 years.
The Structures
The poles, which can be wood, or metal, or truss, the
footers for them are flex-mounted, and consist of what we
call an elephant foot (our design) and an anchor. They can
be removed easily disappear completely and leave your yard
with just a patch of disturbed soil. The main rope auger
anchors screw down 4 feet and have huge pull-out strength.
They are what's used to secure mobile homes in hurricanes.
We leave our RainShades up in the hurricanes we get here in
Gainesville.
The Extremes
We guarantee them. These structures are our art, and become
a bit like children. We will repair them from wind damage
for no charge. Obviously chaos happens. Our physical models
can test, show, and predict failure behavior. We have tuned
this to optimal. Even if something fails, like an anchor
pulls out during high winds (doesn't happen without
flooding), it just lies down with the pole still attached.
Actually, all aspects of them have super considered failure
modes built-in. Having spent my entire life in wind sports,
and more still, professionally repairing failed soft wings
of all types for decades, I have a lot of ideas for what
makes a great, safe, easy-to-repair failure, especially with
these. The cool part is they really don't fail.
RainShades
Paradoxically permanent, portable, and leave-no-trace
temporary. We began making these for ourselves, and like
so many other things we make, it happened because
nothing else like these is available.
Buy them for Life
Made to remain in service for over 20 years before a
re-skin is needed. WindFire Designs RainShades are
phenomenal outdoor living.
Life-shaped
Precisely designed and extensively real-world tested.
Both physically and computer modeled—all details are
considered to reshape sun, wind and water to fit your
needs.
3D-formed and sculpted
Infinite nighttime lighting and projection
possibilities.
Incredibly smooth, Incredibly clean
WindFire Designs RainShades are glassy smooth. They are also
amazingly self-cleaning. And what does build up, even after
a couple years, can be removed by nothing more than a wet
rag.
Earth connected
Flex-mounted uprights, deep structural ground anchors,
and synthetic cables make our system calm and collected
even when the weather is not.
No ordinary fiber
The incredible ultra high molecular weight polyethylene
fiber makes ropes that are not only impossibly strong,
but much more important, they never stretch. The
hand-spliced rope is tested at over 20,000 pounds. Our
shade sails go tight, and stay tight.
Mathematical saddle shapes
NovaShield does not stretch. In order to go tight, not
flap, and shed water, shaping is everything. If you've
ever tried to install a flat tarp and make it do this,
you'll know, flat panels are not the answer.
Our models, and the shape data that we derive from them
are the answer. These are minimum surface area
calculations. Historically, these have always been
difficult, even for computers. Of course, in nature, we
can solve the shape in an instant, with a bubble film—or
in our case, our film-compute models.
Breathing Room
All the right kinds of shelter
Amazing light
Beauty, rain protection, and soft luminosity while
blocking 100% UV. NovaShield reflects 90% of visible
light but unlike so many membrane materials, it glows
underneath.
Color at night
Smooth, high-tension surfaces that glow make amazing
lighting diffusers.
At home in heavy rain Super chill in big wind
Note the absence of deformation even with all that wind and
water
Swim under them
There is something super magical, especially in the
Florida heat, about being in your pool, but also having
the choice to be protected from the sun.
Our customers tell us that they are re-discovering their
pools. Some say that, because of the RainShade, they've
gone swimming more in the year since we put it up than
they have the entire time they've owned the property.
Live under them
RainShades are fabulous full-time shelters. We have a
vintage Airstream that we totally renovated under a
custom RainShade made just for it.
The Airstream is from 1970, and boy did it leak when we
got it. Now, however, no more leaks because the rain
never even touches it. It's a full little apartment with
kitchen, bath, and RainShade veranda.
Right in the environment
Cradle to Cradle Bronze certified! — NovaShield Elite,
our membrane material of choice, is the first
architectural membrane to carry an environmental
certification.
How does it do 20 years?
It repairs itself chemically!
This is not awning cloth class, it's architectural
membrane class, and that's a huge difference. According
to the manufacturer of the membrane, it uses what's
called H.A.L.S., or hindered amine light stabilization
chemistry. So instead of using pfas, a forever chemical,
when sunlight hits this stuff, it makes free radicals,
but the material uses those to actually set up a chain
reaction by which it self-repairs. Pure amazing.
Our system is considered at every level as a min/max
solution — asking so little of the planet while
providing so much for the owner.
10 degrees of protection
The owner of this one tells us that their water stayed,
at the height of Florida summer, an average of 10
degrees cooler than it ever has in the past. This is
actually a huge accomplishment here in Florida.
Surplus structure
WindFire Designs RainShades are incredibly structural.
Built of the strongest materials we know of, there are
plenty of opportunities for extra fun.
