Pickleball Court Structural Design Package: Scope, Fee, Timeline

A roof over a court is a big, light steel structure that the wind wants to lift. The drawings the crew builds from carry the wind speed, the column base and the footing, all decided before the first bar is cut. Illustrative photo.

Short answer: a pickleball court structural design package is the set your permit office and your contractor build from: design criteria, wind and seismic loads, a 3D analysis of the roof frame, footing and column design, connection and base plate design, foundation and roof framing plans, details, general notes and a design report, all signed and sealed by a licensed engineer. AEDO's published structural design offer is ₱7,500 up to 150 sqm and ₱50 per sqm above that, up to 500 sqm, delivered in 3 working days once the plans, location, soil data and downpayment are in. That offer is written in floor area and a court roof has no floor, so AEDO confirms on the quote which area the band applies to; this page does not promise the express price for a court roof. The estimator below applies the band to the roof plan area as an illustration and uses no other price. Its default case, two courts under a 400 sqm roof with one milestone check, comes to ₱27,500 on that basis: ₱20,000 for the design and ₱7,500 for one site visit. Roofs above 500 sqm, such as a three-court roof, aren't priced on this page. They're quoted. Soil testing, architectural drawings, electrical and other MEPFS design and permit fees are not part of the structural design offer.

Most owners who write to us about this are not in Negros Oriental, and that's fine. AEDO builds only in Negros Oriental. Everywhere else in the Philippines we design, seal, review remotely and check milestones, and your own contractor builds. The estimator comes first, then what's in the package, what to send, why a proper set beats a copied kit, and the checklist a good set has to pass.

1. What Is in the Package

Here is what our own court-roof design reports contain, described without the owners' names. A recent example is a roof over three courts, about 29.7 m × 18.8 m in plan: seven transverse portal frames, each a welded steel angle-bar truss spanning roughly 19.5 m on two reinforced concrete columns fixed at isolated footings. Another was an open roof of steel pipe columns embedded in small concrete pedestals under angle-bar trusses, with bracing between column lines. The package is organised the same way each time.

1.1 Design criteria

One sheet that says what the design was based on: the codes (NSCP 2015, 7th edition, with the standards it refers to for steel and concrete), material strengths, roof dead and live load, wind, seismic and load combinations, and the foundation data. One of our roofed-court reports in Negros Oriental, for example, lists 11 allowable-stress combinations for the footings and 20 strength combinations for the members and connections. Any assumption that could not be confirmed is written on the sheet, such as a soil bearing value assumed pending a soil investigation. That way the contractor knows what to report if the ground turns out different.

1.2 Loads: wind and seismic

For a light roof over an open court, wind uplift can be the governing load on the roof members and the footing anchorage, and it is the part a copied kit can't be trusted on. NSCP 2015 has no wind zones; the basic wind speed is read off the wind hazard maps of Section 207A.5 (Figure 207A.5-1, a separate map for each occupancy category) for the site, so the town matters, and the code itself notes that special wind regions such as mountainous terrain may need a local adjustment. Our wind load guide explains the method and our wind lookup helps you find your site's value. In two of our recent court roofs the design wind speed was 250 kph, 3-second gust, but that was chosen for those sites and is not a default for yours. Seismic is checked as well: NSCP 2015 Section 208.4.4.1 divides the country into two seismic zones only. Zone 2 covers Palawan (except Busuanga), Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, and the rest of the country is Zone 4 (Z = 0.40), so a court almost anywhere else is designed for Zone 4. Our pre-engineered steel building guide covers why a big light roof behaves so differently from a house.

1.3 Analysis and member design

A three-dimensional model of the frame is analysed for all load combinations, and every steel member is code-checked against the AISC provisions NSCP refers to. The model is where the lateral system is proven, whether that is fixed-base cantilever columns or a braced frame. In one of our designs the first model showed that cantilever columns alone were not enough for drift and member strength, so full-height bracing was added. That is the kind of result you only get by running the analysis.

1.4 Foundation, connections, base plates and anchors

Columns and isolated footings are designed for the bearing pressure, uplift, sliding and overturning. Then come the parts that fail first when the design is thin: how the truss sits on the column head, the base plate and cast-in anchors (or, where designed without a base plate, how a pipe column is developed into its pedestal), and the welded truss joints. Our reports carry these as separate sections, citing the connection and anchoring provisions of NSCP and the AISC and ACI standards behind them.

1.5 Drawings, general notes and schedules

The sheets a crew builds from: foundation plan and details, roof framing plan, truss and column details, column and footing schedules, and general notes with concrete strength, bar grade, steel grade, weld requirements and cover. This matches what the Revised IRR asks the OBO to see: foundation plans and floor or roof framing plans with details, at a scale not less than 1:100 (Section 302, item 5).

1.6 Design report and seal

The structural analysis and design report is the computation package the OBO expects to find. Section 302(5)(c) asks for a structural analysis and design for all buildings and structures except a one-storey, single detached structure of 20 sqm or less, and Section 302(5)(e) also lists a seismic analysis. Under Section 302(3) the civil or structural documents are signed and sealed by a civil engineer. The seal is what makes the engineer answerable for the design (Section 304(5)(a) and (b)), so it shouldn't be an afterthought.

1.7 Bill of materials, if you want one

A bill of materials, meaning steel tonnage by member size, concrete volumes and reinforcement, helps you compare contractor bids like for like. It is not one of the listed inclusions in AEDO's published structural design offer (foundation and framing plans, schedules, details and notes, design report, sealed set), so the estimator lists it as quoted and leaves it out of the total. AEDO's design packages page separately lists a Bill of Quantities and Cost Estimate from ₱3,000 (₱3,000 to ₱8,000 by floor area); that is a cost document, not a steel takeoff, and whether it fits a court roof is confirmed on the quote.

2. What You Send Us

• Exact site location (town and barangay, or a map pin). Wind speed and the seismic and soil checks depend on where it is.
• Site plan or a sketch showing where the courts sit, how they are arranged, and how the lot is bounded.
• Number of courts and the roof plan area, or the dimensions. If you are still deciding, the USA Pickleball 2026 rulebook (Section 3.A) gives 20 ft × 44 ft for the court, a minimum playing surface of 30 ft × 60 ft, and recommends 34 ft × 64 ft for new construction. It sets no minimum ceiling height: ceilings and roof members count as permanent objects, and a ball that hits one is a fault, so eave and truss height are a design choice. No Philippine code sets pickleball dimensions. Our court construction cost guide works through the layout.
• Soil information: a boring result or geotechnical report if you have one. If you don't, tell us; our soil boring test guide explains what it is and where it fits. NSCP 2015 Section 303.1 requires a foundation investigation and a professional report at each building site, and an exhaustive geotechnical study for structures of two storeys or higher and in cases such as questionable or problematic soils, groundwater above, or within 1.5 m below, the lowest floor level, or pile foundations. Section 304.1 says the geotechnical investigation is performed by a geotechnical engineer. Where no exhaustive investigation is done, Section 304.2 allows the Table 304-1 presumptive values, but only if the foundation design engineer has inspected the site, and mud, organic silt, organic clay, peat or unprepared fill may not be assumed to have a presumptive value. For a one-storey structure our services page says we can use the presumptive value after the site has been inspected, and that the 3 working days start once soil data is in. Whether that is enough for your site, or your OBO wants a boring, depends on the ground.
• Clear height and sides: how high the eaves need to be, and whether the sides stay open or get screens, netting or walls. An open roof and an enclosed one are different wind problems.
• Any architectural drawing you already have, even a hand sketch, and your OBO's requirements if you have talked to them.

Not sure about the roof shape or how high to go? Our clear height guide and covered court cost guide may help you decide before you call.

3. The Fee, Exactly

Read from our structural design service page this month: ₱7,500 up to 150 sqm, then ₱50 per sqm up to 500 sqm, for NSCP 2015 analysis and permit-ready structural plans and a design report, signed and sealed, in 3 working days. The offer covers regular buildings up to 3 storeys and 500 sqm; larger, taller or irregular buildings are quoted per project. The 3 days start once final architectural plans, location, soil data and the 60% downpayment are in. If the band were applied to a roof plan area, this is what it would give for roofs you might build:

Two things to know before you rely on this table. First, the offer is written in floor area; a court roof has no floor, so the roof area in plan is only our working basis here. AEDO has not yet fixed which measure applies to a court roof (roof plan area, slab area or something else), and the price for your roof is confirmed on the quote. This page does not promise the express price for a court roof. Second, a roof of this kind is a single-storey structure, but a very tall or long-span or geometrically complex scheme can still fall outside "regular", which is why the estimator flags rather than promises. The 558.5 sqm figure above is 29.71 m × 18.80 m from one of our own roof reports.

How does this compare with the general fee picture? Our structural engineer fee guide explains why small structural jobs are quoted as a lump sum rather than a percentage of cost.

4. What Stays Out of the Fee

Our service page lists what the offer includes (foundation and framing plans, column, beam and slab schedules, details and general notes, the design report, sealed and permit-ready). It does not print an exclusions list, so the items below are work that sits outside a structural design offer by its nature. Confirm each on the quote.

• Soil testing. The boring or geotechnical work is paid to the tester, not to us. Ask us what to specify so you don't pay for the wrong test.
• Architectural drawings and, where your OBO requires them, site development or vicinity plans. Under Section 302(3) of the IRR, architectural documents are signed and sealed by an architect. We coordinate with yours; our commercial fit-out permit guide shows the wider set of signatures a project may need.
• Electrical, plumbing, mechanical and fire-protection design (MEPFS). Court lighting needs a proper load and circuit design by the right professional; see our electrical service sizing guide.
• Permit and government fees, and the Building Official's assessment.
• Construction, supply and the court surface. Coating and line marking are the contractor's scope.
• Bill of materials, unless quoted with the design.
• Site visits. These are separate: the Single Milestone Check on our Project Oversight page starts at ₱7,500 per visit, with a written report.

5. Versus a Draftsman or a Copied Kit

Some owners think of the structural set as paperwork and look for the cheapest name on it. Two shortcuts, in particular, fail in the same way.

A draftsman without an engineer's analysis. The IRR asks for a structural analysis and design for the building or structure (Section 302(5)(c)), and a sealed civil or structural set (Section 302(3)). Drawings with no computations are an incomplete set. Our plans-returned guide lists what OBOs actually send back: unsigned or unsealed sheets, no structural analysis, seismic or wind basis not stated. Redoing the analysis after a return is the design, not a correction.

A US or imported court-roof kit. A foreign kit is designed for another site: another wind map, other code, another soil. NSCP 2015 reads the wind speed from its own map for the location, and a kit's sheet won't show it. Section 304(5)(b) makes the design professionals who sign and seal responsible for the plans' comprehensiveness and correctness under the Code, so someone here has to check the kit and put a seal on it. That someone will need the loads, the foundation design for your soil, and connections to your local materials. Checking and adapting a kit can end up costing about as much as designing it locally in the first place. Our concrete versus steel frame guide explains why steel is the normal choice for a court roof and what it needs in a typhoon-exposed country.

Note the liability point as well. Under Section 304(5)(a), Article 1723 of the Civil Code makes the engineer or architect who drew up the plans liable for damages if the structure collapses within 15 years due to a defect in the plans or specifications or defects in the ground. A designer who signs for that will do the calculation.

6. Timeline

• Day 0: you send the inputs and pay the 60% downpayment.
• Day 1: loads and the 3D model. Day 2: design and drawings. Day 3: engineer check, seal and release. That is the published 3 working days for designs inside the offer; for a court roof, AEDO confirms the schedule on the quote.
• The clock starts once final architectural plans, location, soil data and the downpayment are in (for a court roof, AEDO confirms on the quote what counts as complete). If the design changes midway, the 3 days restart.
• Larger or complex roofs get their own schedule on the quote.
• The OBO's review is separate. Our plans-returned guide explains the RA 11032 processing times and the checklist to run before you submit.

7. Working From Outside Negros Oriental

AEDO builds only in Negros Oriental. For a court in Cebu, Mindanao, Luzon or anywhere else, the work splits cleanly:

• We design and seal the structure from your sketch, location and soil data, and send the sealed set and report as files.
• You choose the contractor. They price from the drawings (and a bill of materials, if you asked for one).
• We review remotely. Send photos and video of the footing steel, the anchor bolts, the truss welds and the erected frame. We tell you what matches the drawings and what doesn't.
• We check milestones with a Single Milestone Check, from ₱7,500 per visit and a written report, on our Project Oversight page, which that page offers nationwide. Travel to a remote site isn't stated there, so confirm it when you enquire. Our rooftop solar mounting guide shows the same remote pattern for another kind of structure.

Section 308 of the IRR still applies: the permit holder engages a licensed architect or civil engineer for the full-time inspection and supervision of the work. That person may or may not be the designer. A milestone check is a second pair of eyes; it doesn't replace that supervision.

8. What the Building Official Needs

We read the 2004 Revised IRR of PD 1096 this month. The points that matter for a court roof:

• A building permit for the roof. The IRR requires a permit to erect a structure. Its exemption list (Section 301, item 3) covers small items such as sheds and outhouses of up to 6 sqm and open terraces of up to 20 sqm on the ground for private use. A court roof is not on it. "Structure" is defined broadly in the IRR, as anything built or constructed, including any piece of work artificially built up of parts joined together.
• Structural documents per Section 302(5): foundation plans, floor or roof framing plans and details at not less than 1:100, details and schedules, structural analysis and design, and soil information where required. Section 302(5)(d) requires boring tests for three storeys and higher and adequate soil exploration for lower buildings in areas with potential geological or geotechnical hazards. Your OBO decides whether your site is such an area.
• Sealed by the right people: structural sheets by a civil engineer, architectural sheets by an architect (Section 302(3)). Who may sign what was contested between architects and civil engineers; the Supreme Court, in DPWH v. PICE (G.R. Nos. 200015 and 205846, 15 March 2023), upheld Section 302(3) and (4) of the 2004 Revised IRR, so only architects sign architectural documents, while the IRR still assigns civil and structural documents to civil engineers. Our who can sign building plans guide has the detail.
• Occupancy: the IRR groups buildings by use in Section 701. It names tennis, badminton and basketball courts under Group J, Division 3 (accessory), and lists tennis and basketball courts run by a membership organisation not for gain under Group A, Division 1. Pickleball is not named. The same section says a use not specifically mentioned, or about which there is any question, is placed in the Group it most nearly resembles by life and fire hazard. If your OBO treats a roofed court hall as an assembly building, Group H, Division 3 (assembly, no stage, fewer than 300 occupants) is the nearest group. We found no clause that classifies a pickleball court roof directly, so how your OBO classifies it, and whether that triggers fire or accessibility items, is the office's call. Ask before you design.
• Amendments: permit processing was later amended by the Amended JMC No. 2021-01 (which amends JMC 2018-01), and RA 11032 sets the processing times. We did not re-read those two for this post; our plans-returned guide covers both.

We could not find a Philippine standard that sets structural requirements specific to pickleball roofs, so the design follows NSCP 2015 like any other steel roof.

9. Checklist: What a Good Roof Set Must Show

Before you accept a design, or if you're reviewing one someone else drew, look for each of these on the sheets:

• ☐ Site and wind: the town, the basic wind speed used, the exposure category, and the occupancy category (it decides which wind map applies). If the wind speed isn't stated, ask for it.
• ☐ Seismic basis: seismic zone and factor, soil profile type, and the lateral system chosen (cantilever columns or bracing).
• ☐ Loads: roof dead and live loads and the load combinations used, and the uplift case (dead load reduced, wind on).
• ☐ Foundation data: the bearing value used, and whether it's assumed or from a soil report. If assumed, a note telling the contractor what to do if the soil differs.
• ☐ Materials: concrete strength, bar grade, steel grade, weld electrode and welding standard, primer or coating for the steel.
• ☐ Analysis: a 3D model with a member check, not a rule of thumb, plus drift where relevant.
• ☐ Foundation plan and schedule: footing sizes, depth, reinforcement, pedestal or column dowels.
• ☐ Connections: base plate or embedded connection, anchor size and embedment, truss-to-column connection, welded joint details.
• ☐ Roof framing plan: truss spacing, purlin size and spacing, sag rods, bracing, and the roofing fixing at every purlin.
• ☐ Seal and signature on each structural sheet with current PRC and PTR details, and a report you can hand to the OBO.
• ☐ Construction notes: who inspects the footing steel, anchor placement and welds, and what happens if the field conditions differ.

Missing items are not paperwork gaps; each one is a decision somebody made by default. If a set you were sold lacks half of these, a second opinion costs less than a re-design after a return.

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