Podium Decks

Podium Decks are external platforms between and/or attached to building structures and can be utilised for car parks, leisure spaces, recreational spaces, patio terraces and gardens. A Podium Deck provides a number of options for usage for the building owner.

With more and more underground structures, such as car parking garages, the volume of Podium Decks is growing fast in towns and cities across the UK. These Podium Decks are often designed as outdoor accessible space, increasing usable space and property value, and feature a combination of hard and landscaped areas.

Waterproofing a concrete or similar deck over a non-critical area such as a car park, Podium Decks are elevated platform decks generally used as infill between buildings and or other structures. The requirement to waterproof is to protect the parent substrate allowing for usage of the deck. Roof waterproofing is not included as this involves a number of additional requirements.

There are many different types of materials that can be used to waterproof the deck and the choice will depend on the project requirements and will include:

• Seamless resins; epoxy, polyurethanes, polyuria’s, MMA, some of which can be fast curing.
• Sheet membranes, bitumen-based both hot and cold-applied PVC and EPDM based sheets.
• Cement-based crystallization slurries.
• Choice will depend on service life, durability, installation requirements or limitations, new or refurbishment, final use, application type, hand, spray, rolled, etc.

Instead of just looking nice and relying on drinking water for plant irrigation, these Podium Decks can support a much wider range of valuable functions such as:

• Protection of the roof structure underneath;
• Simplification of the roof construction and reducing the amount of underslung pipework and roof incisions;
• Capacity of draining rainwater properly;
• Retaining rainwater as much as possible, reducing sewer loads and;
• Being a source of irrigation water for plant growth, thus playing an active part in cooling the urban environment and water conservation.