The build itself follows a known sequence — groundwork, basin shell, generation install, commissioning. What matters for the wave is different at each stage: some things stay adjustable to the last day, and some become concrete in the literal sense. This page walks the stages and marks what each one locks in.
By the time machines are switched on, the envelope of waves the pool can ever produce is already set by the basin geometry, the bottom profile and the installed power. Commissioning can tune within that envelope, not beyond it. That's why the engineering questions have deadlines, and the deadlines are construction stages.
Excavation, soils, drainage, utilities. Locks the footprint, the maximum depths and where the water and power arrive. Site constraints found here propagate into every later decision.
The concrete shell and the bottom profile, built to tolerances. This is the point of no return: the geometry that shapes the wave becomes permanent, and centimetre-level deviations in the bottom move the breaking zone.
Machines, drives, water treatment, electrical. Hardware is serviceable and in principle replaceable — but it's sized against the basin, so late changes here mean re-engineering, not shopping.
Filling, testing, tuning generation modes. The only stage where parameters still move — inside the envelope the basin and the installed power allow. Nothing here fixes a wrong bottom.
Stays adjustable: generation modes and timing, session formats, software, serviceable hardware. Becomes permanent: depths, basin dimensions and the bottom profile — the exact things that decide where the wave grows and breaks. The asymmetry is the whole risk profile of the project: the cheapest-to-change items are the ones that matter least for the wave.
Construction tolerances belong in the calculation for the same reason. The main page mentions sensitivity to build tolerances — here it's concrete: the bottom is poured once, so the design must already know how much deviation the wave forgives.
Publicly documented: Alaia Bay in Sion went from construction start in November 2019 to opening in spring 2021 — about a year and a half on site. The Bristol project was publicly discussed from 2013 — first reported as a £6m surfing-lake plan — and opened in 2019 as a £26m facility. Land, permits, design and financing take the years; the pour takes the months. Which means the calculation phase is not a delay before the real work — it is most of the schedule, and the cheapest place to change your mind. Contested decisions get a middle step there: a scale prototype between the calculation and the pour — an error caught on a model costs a model, not a basin. The money side of the same decisions is on the surf-pool cost page.
Publicly documented example: Alaia Bay started construction in November 2019 and opened in spring 2021 — about 1.5 years on site. Full cycles run longer: Bristol was publicly discussed from 2013 and opened in 2019. Land, permits and design usually outweigh the build itself.
The basin: footprint, depths, bottom profile. After the shell is poured, the wave-shaping geometry is permanent — machines can be replaced, concrete bathymetry realistically can't.
Only within what the basin and installed machines allow: modes, timing, software. The envelope of possible waves was fixed earlier — by geometry and installed power.
The wave calculation: target wave, bottom profile, generation input, and how sensitive the result is to construction tolerances. Those decisions are cheap on paper and expensive after the pour. Contested pieces go to a scale prototype first — the calculation tells you what to prototype.
We don't build — we calculate. Send the basin geometry, the target wave and the stage you're at, and we'll tell you which decisions are about to lock in, and which of them still deserve a calculation before they do.