For architects, QSs and developers
A pool contractor who fits into your programme.
Since 1973 Curtis Pools has been building gunite pools inside other people’s projects: on live school campuses, in hotels that never close, and three floors up on a concrete deck. Send us the drawings and we’ll price and programme the pool.
The pool in the photograph is a school aquatic centre in Cape Town, delivered in 2024 with Base Projects as the main contractor.
Have drawings ready? Email them to us, or give us a call.
The pool is one line on your programme. We keep it that way.
Most of our commercial work happens while a main contractor is building around us. It might be a school that’s being extended, a hotel with guests in it, or a courtyard pool on the third floor. We know what a pool needs from the rest of the build, and what the rest of the build needs from the pool.
Send us your drawingsScope
What we take off your plate
01
Structural gunite shells
Steel-reinforced, sprayed-concrete shells built to your drawings. They can be any shape, raised or sunken, on grade or on a suspended slab. If that’s how the job is let, we’ll build the shell only and leave it for another contractor to finish.
02
Complete pools
Shell, coping, mosaics, marbelite interior, racing lines and paving, all done by our own crews, and we photograph the build at every stage. We install the piping and the filtration plant complete, into a plant room built by the main contractor. Starting blocks and accessories are supplied by others and installed by us.
03
Competition, polo and learn-to-swim
25-metre lane pools with starting blocks and lane tiling, water polo pools 2 metres deep, and warm learn-to-swim pools with heat pumps and covers. We build them outdoors, or indoors under a hall roof.
04
Water features and lakes
Reflection lakes, statue fountains, rock streams and natural ponds with biofilters. The work runs from a hotel plaza to 7 000 m² of water through an office park.
05
Work in occupied buildings
Renovations and refinishing in resorts and estates that stay open. We cordon off the work area, keep the noise to agreed hours, and work to a four-week programme when that’s what the gym allows.
06
Industrial gunite
Mesh-reinforced gunite, where it’s the right answer beyond pools. That includes re-lining scour-damaged stormwater culverts and stabilising cut slopes.
On site
How we fit into a building programme
01
Drawings first
Send us the architect’s or engineer’s drawings and we’ll price from them. If there aren’t any yet, we’ll come to site and draw the pool for the space.
02
Sequenced with the main contractor
At Skye College the pool had to go in before the new buildings closed off the access. After that, only a wheelbarrow could get through. We plan around windows like that.
03
Difficult ground and high decks
On dolomite we cast beams under the shell, with agricultural drains beneath them. On a deck, the compressor stays at ground level, the air is piped up, and the materials are spread out to keep the load down.
04
Watertight from the first fill
A rooftop shell has nothing below it but a shop. We build our shells to hold water from the day they’re filled, and we photograph the build so that the record can go into your file.
Case in point
Pool shells eight floors up, for another contractor.
At The Houghton we built the gunite shells for the penthouse pools eight to nine floors up, between July and November 2012. The materials were spread across the deck to keep the load down, and the compressed air was piped up from the ground.
At Fire & Ice in Melrose Arch, the hotel’s courtyard pool shell went in three floors above the shops in 2009. The gunite machines stood on the deck, the compressor stayed at street level, and the shell had to be watertight from the first fill.
The Houghton penthouse poolsSelected work
Projects we’ve delivered alongside other contractors
Pricing a project with a pool in it?
Tell us about the job in the form at the top of this page, or send the drawings straight to us. We’ll come back to you with a price and a programme.
Track record
Firms we have worked alongside
Architects, QSs & developers
SNA Architects
Skye Architects
BPAS Architects
Townsend Architects
QS Consult
Equate Group
Questcost QS
HB Realty
Africrest Properties
Main contractors
Van der Linde Venter
Astek
Farquharson Projects
Stefanutti Stocks
Base Projects
GD Irons
Tyris Construction
Central Developments
Grinaker-Aveng
Group Five
1973
More than fifty years of gunite and marbelite under one family name, and a client list of schools, resorts and corporates to match.
25 × 30 m
The Cape Town aquatic centre is an indoor water polo pool with eight heat pumps. It was delivered in about five months, with Base Projects as the main contractor.
NSPI
Judged by the industry itself: Gold and Silver awards for gunite pools and water features, a Silver for a public school pool, and a Gauteng Pool of the Year.
Have an upcoming project?
Send us your drawings.
Email the drawings and a brief to sales@curtispools.co.za, or fill in the short form and we’ll call you back. You’ll get a price, a programme and straight answers about what the site will let us do.