This idea for a flat-roofed home is one of my favorites from this page, and it is well worth considering if you are designing a home like it. If designing your first flat roof home, give a little thought to how you are going to cover your exterior walls. This flat roof home design is quite unique and barely resembles any home on a flat roof that I have seen.
Flat roof contemporary homes are usually built with a very unique design, and they are also very unrepresentative of traditional residential homes. Flat roof modern homes and finishes have traditionally been worth a lot more money, and are considered status symbols when they are built.
Modern homes and flat roofs are a speciality, and if you are looking to build one, you will want to find a builder who is familiar with the techniques and materials required. An architect, designer, or engineer may help with roof design and framing plans, but a good, experienced roofer is essential. When designed and installed correctly, a flat roof has the same or better storm-resistance characteristics than a pitched roof.
A completely legitimate concern, but rest assured that your architect and engineers had that consideration when designing your roof structure. Large cantilevers, complicated angles, lots of separate roofs, steep gradients, and numerous flashing pieces at the edges all increase the cost of your roofing system — so does the type of framing system, the type of roofing materials, and the insulation.
I generally find the depth of structural framing required to hold the snow loads of flat roofs in my region lines up well with how much insulation I need to be providing anyway. The horizontal lines on this 8 1/2 by 13 foot flat roof segment of the design home makes it susceptible to high snow loads and ponding rainwater, so it needs to be built for durability. Yet, for a historical-modernist structure such as this project from the Cambridge television station Old House, a flat roof is a central element in architecture, meant to mirror the broader horizontal lines of a natural landscape.
In Switzerland, where real-life chateaus usually feature lateral walls, the sloped roofs tended toward much wider, flatter peaks. In the first example below, the roof construction uses two shed roofs (or bisects a gable roof) and adds a green roof. This seamless transition is just one of the ways that some Gable Roof designs successfully made the transition to Modernism. For one, a gable is an extremely simple, direct, and utilitarian design–all of which are characteristics of modernism.
Vaulting adds dimensionality to a space, so a lot of contemporary house designs that have a gable roof make use of vaulting: that way, they get the opportunity for loft space. Flat roofs are also available, unlike other roof styles, providing extra living space, as well as being used to create viewing platforms that show sweeping views of the surrounding landscape. Modern houses with flat roofs also offer practical benefits, including increased outdoor living space, lower building costs, and better insulation.
Home designs have evolved in terms of innovations and construction technologies that have made the design of a flat-roofed home much more cost-effective than before, and consequently, much more popular. Popular more than a century ago, homeowners are re-discovering the overlooked benefits of this roofing style today. This contemporary home with a flat roof features an Ipe siding and soffit mixed with brushed stucco, metal windows and door frames, and glass railings. This gorgeous contemporary home has smooth white stucco siding with black framed windows and doors, and a flat roof design.
The right geometry for modern A-frame house, the uncommon roof for A-frames of common men on street, successful placement of building in a wooded area, would give memorable days and years for happy tenants in the middle of such a beauty. The successful location of a place, in which the unusual house with A-Frame Roof is located, highlights all architectural features of the structure, and allows to maximise preservation of natural landscapes and plants. Although some would think that the ground-floor A-Frame Roof House is simply a creative and successful architectural decision, but the sense of oneness with the unknown celestial forces does not go away, neither from outside nor from within the building.
To accomplish both, North Arrow Studio organized space vertically, giving RoadRunner Residence, in Austin, four levels and a clean, flat roof. Robertson Design designed the buildings as three boxes, each with its own distinct functionality, and all three of them had flat roofs to highlight the pure geometry of the three boxes.
On two sides, the roofs faced the parapets (a short wall that is common around flat roofs) as did a wall on the third floor; this is where a rubber roof would have had to extend over the walls and be cemented into the cladding. By flat, I mean a one sloped down toward a drainage outlet, and covered either by an integrated roof covering or by a one-ply membrane. Flats on upper floors and finished lofts are possibilities, with none of the sloping walls produced by a conventional pitched roof.
Emmas proposed design comes with one large bedroom and a large living room/kitchen, but your homes divisions can be easily modified to suit your needs. You can design the living roof into a lounge area outside for relaxing or barbecuing, or you could grow a garden on your roof. The slope of your roof can be designed to block out direct sun gain during the summer, but allow for solar light to enter your home during the winter. Mine has been framing many roofs (trusses and framed by hand) but was surprised when I had to reflect on this and realized that I had never really framed one that was flatter.
Fortunately, the materials available today for covering flat roofs have improved greatly in the last couple decades; some come with warranties that are as long as 20 years, approaching the ones you get with pitched roofing.
Installing things such as solar panels, which save electricity, and solar panels — these things can make repairs and cleaning your gutters on flat roofs much less costly and easier.