Pavilions in Dallas, TX

No house to lean on means the frame does all the work

A pavilion carries its roof without any help from the building. Everything that a wall would normally resist has to be handled by the posts, the footings and the connections between them. That makes it a more demanding structure than a patio cover of the same size, and the difference is nearly all below ground and inside the joints.

• Footings that resist overturningWith nothing to brace against, wind wants to rotate the whole frame. Footings are sized and depthed to resist that, which is why a pavilion footing is not the same as a fence post footing scaled up.
• Bracing designed into the appearanceThe frame needs to resist racking. Done thoughtfully, the bracing reads as part of the design. Left out for a cleaner look, the structure relies on its fasteners alone and gradually loses square.
• A roof detailed to shed properlyRoof covering, pitch and edge details are chosen so water leaves cleanly rather than tracking back along the underside of the beams and staining the timber you chose it for.
• Sited for what it does to the yardA free standing roof is a large object and it casts shade, blocks sight lines and divides the space whether you intended that or not. Where it goes changes how the whole yard works, so we look at it from the house and from the seating before committing footings, not after the frame is up.

A pavilion gives you shade anywhere in the yard rather than only against the house, which is usually the point of building one. A pavilion is worth building when you want to use a part of the yard that has no shade and no shelter, which usually means away from the house. If what you actually want is to extend the room you already have, an attached cover is normally the better and cheaper answer, and we will say so.