A roof is the top covering of a building, including all materials and constructions necessary to support it on the walls of the building or on uprights, providing protection against rain, snow, sunlight, extremes of temperature, and wind. A roof is part of the building envelope.
Ancient Greek architecture came from the Greeks, or Hellenics, whose culture flourished on the Greek mainland, the Peloponnese, the Aegean Islands, and in colonies in Anatolia and Italy for a period from about 900 BC until the 1st century AD, with the earliest remaining architectural works dating from around 600 BC.
Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge, rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of the vegetation stays dry and is densely packed—trapping air—thatching also functions as insulation. It is a very old roofing method and has been used in both tropical and temperate climates. Thatch is still employed by builders in developing countries, usually with low-cost local vegetation. By contrast, in some developed countries it is the choice of some affluent people who desire a rustic look for their home, would like a more ecologically friendly roof, or who have purchased an originally thatched abode.
A blackhouse is a traditional type of house which used to be common in Ireland, the Hebrides, and the Scottish Highlands.
Vernacular architecture is building done outside any academic tradition, and without professional guidance. It is not a particular architectural movement or style, but rather a broad category, encompassing a wide range and variety of building types, with differing methods of construction, from around the world, both historical and extant and classical and modern. Vernacular architecture constitutes 95% of the world's built environment, as estimated in 1995 by Amos Rapoport, as measured against the small percentage of new buildings every year designed by architects and built by engineers.
The Dartmoor longhouse is a type of traditional stone-built home, typically found on the high ground of Dartmoor, in Devon, England and belonging to a wider tradition of combining human residences with those of livestock under a single roof specific to western Britain; Wales, Cornwall and Devon, where they are more usually referred to simply as longhouses and in general housebarns.
American colonial architecture includes several building design styles associated with the colonial period of the United States, including First Period English (late-medieval), Spanish Colonial, French Colonial, Dutch Colonial, and Georgian. These styles are associated with the houses, churches and government buildings of the period from about 1600 through the 19th century.
The bahay kubo, kubo, or payag is a type of stilt house indigenous to the Philippines. It often serves as an icon of Philippine culture. The house is exclusive to the lowland population of unified Spanish conquered territories. Its design heavily influenced the colonial-era bahay na bato architecture.
Minka are vernacular houses constructed in any one of several traditional Japanese building styles. In the context of the four divisions of society, Minka were the dwellings of farmers, artisans, and merchants. This connotation no longer exists in the modern Japanese language, and any traditional Japanese-style residence of appropriate age could be referred to as Minka.
Scottish Vernacular architecture is a form of vernacular architecture that uses local materials.
A stepped gable, crow-stepped gable, or corbie step is a stairstep type of design at the top of the triangular gable-end of a building. The top of the parapet wall projects above the roofline and the top of the brick or stone wall is stacked in a step pattern above the roof as a decoration and as a convenient way to finish the brick courses. A stepped parapet may appear on building facades with or without gable ends, and even upon a false front.
Indian vernacular architecture the informal, functional architecture of structures, often in rural areas of India, built of local materials and designed to meet the needs of the local people. The builders of these structures are unschooled in formal architectural design and their work reflects the rich diversity of India's climate, locally available building materials, and the intricate variations in local social customs and craftsmanship. It has been estimated that worldwide close to 90% of all building is vernacular, meaning that it is for daily use for ordinary, local people and built by local craftsmen.
The designation Cabanes du Breuil is applied to the former agricultural dependencies of a farm located at the place known as Calpalmas at Saint-André-d'Allas, in the Dordogne department in France. Dating from the 19th century, if not the very early 20th century, these buildings share two distinguishing features, their being covered by a dry stone corbelled vault underneath a roofing of stone tiles and their being in clusters.
The Old Stone House is the oldest unchanged building structure in Washington, D.C. The house is also the last pre-revolutionary colonial building in Washington, D.C. Built in 1765, Old Stone House is located at 3051 M Street, Northwest in the city's Georgetown neighborhood. Sentimental local folklore preserved the Old Stone House from being demolished, unlike many colonial homes in the area that were replaced by redevelopment.
The Estonian vernacular architecture consists of a number of traditional vernacular architectural styles throughout Estonia, embodied in villages, farmyards and farm houses. The oldest written sources describing Estonian villages date back to the 13th century, when they were mentioned in the Liber Census Daniae and by the chronicler Henry of Livonia.
Roof tiles are overlapping tiles designed mainly to keep out rain or snow, and are traditionally made from locally available materials such as clay or slate. Later tiles have been made from materials such as concrete, and plastic.
The architecture of Madagascar is unique in Africa, bearing strong resemblance to the construction norms and methods of Southern Borneo from which the earliest inhabitants of Madagascar are believed to have immigrated. Throughout Madagascar, the Kalimantan region of Borneo and Oceania, most traditional houses follow a rectangular rather than round form, and feature a steeply sloped, peaked roof supported by a central pillar.
The hall house is a type of vernacular house traditional in many parts of England, Wales, Ireland and lowland Scotland, as well as northern Europe, during the Middle Ages, centring on a hall. Usually timber-framed, some high status examples were built in stone.
Sundanese traditional house refers to the traditional vernacular houses of the Sundanese people, who predominantly inhabited the western parts of Java island, Indonesia. The architecture of a Sundanese house is characterized by its functionality, simplicity, modesty, uniformity with a little detail, its use of natural thatched materials, and the quite faithful adherence to harmony with nature and the environment.
12–18 Brunswick Square is a set of seven 19th-century terraced houses on the west side of Brunswick Square in the English city of Gloucester. The buildings were completed in 1825 as part of the development of Brunswick Square led by Thomas Reece. In the 1930s Princess Mary visited the YMCA at 18 Brunswick Square. It has since been converted into offices and flats, and has been a Grade II listed building since 21 January 1952.
The stones protect the joins of thatched roofs
When thatch is replaced by tile, the stones no longer serve the original purpose
This modern house incorporates witches' stones in its chimneys
