Form: Roof

The roof is one of the representations of the house form which helps to determine the climates of the house sites. In addition, the roof also represents the culture of that particular house owner. In some places, the house might have a roof as a dominant feature of the house like Karo House in Indonesia. Karo house has a high gable roof serving as a main character to the house which represents the peak and ridge of the mountains and god according to Indonesian people’s belief. Moreover, the roof has a thatching of sugar palm black fibers that are found locally and helps to reduce the cooking smoke along with adding ventilation to the house. Next example that indicates the importance of a roof on the house is the Central Thai House. Central Thai houses have a high gable roof, a popular roof style that is commonly used in Central Thailand. It is important to install a very tilted roof in order to let the rain drain faster especially in countries that have a serious rainy season like Thailand. This gable roof also acts as a heat protection and adds ventilation to the house making the house occupants comfortable while staying in the house during the sunny day. The material for thatching the roof is bulrush, bulrush is a local plant that can be found easily with lots of benefits. This bulrush will sit on top of the wooden frame of the roof and helps to protect the roof from decaying while draining the rainwater. Another example of roof styles in Thailand can be shown in Southern Thai-Muslim House. In this Thai-Muslim House, we can see it has a combination of three types of roof in one house which are Manila Gable, Hip and Gable roof. Manila Gable or “ Balar-Nor, บลานอ” means Hollanders, is a roof that believed that influenced from the Hollander architecture which have the same structure as a hip roof with at least three gable for ventilation on top. The Gable roof or “Mae-Leah, แมและ” in this house is also believed to have been influenced from the Central Thailand house while the Hip roof, “Lee-Mah, ลีมะ” is influenced by the western architecture and now become a main characteristic of Southern Thai house. The roof is again, installed very tilted for faster drainage, has no ceiling so the structure of the roof can be seen clearly with a wooden lath as a frame before putting clay tiles.