Demotech, design for self reliance

A roof construction should result in quality regarding all aspects of comfort as insulation against heat and cold, protect against fire, be durablility, offer cost in relation to local income and suitability for local manufacture

Please visit also our wiki research pages. (D88)

Relevant information and discussion in appropedia.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Please refer to our work and provide us with usefull feedback and comments on our design initiatives.

We cannot be held accountable for injuries incurred during construction or usage of our designs and construction manuals.

Better Roofs
<< Back to category Better living


Why The cost of the roof is too big a part of the total cost of the house. The quality of the roof is by far too little in relation to that cost. Apart from too high a cost, the roof construction is too easy to damage, is too demanding for the layour of the plan of the house. The usual roof construction offers to many constrains for looking out, for daylight and for ventilation. The shortcomings of roofs should not be taken as a natural limitation. Instead it should be realized how much there is to win in comfort when roof constructions become smarter. Such a design effort should first of all relate to the many billions of people living in extreme poor conditions. How A roof construction can profit from a modular construction approach, offering standardization and flexibility at the same time. Use of low cost modern materials can increase its quality. More functions can be assigned to the roof surface such as harvesting water as well as solar energy and offering space for growing plants. The roof surface can also be made suitable for chemical processing, such as recycling human waste and any chemical process that benefits from exposure to light. A roofconstruction should also be easy to open up widely for enjoying the sun and the niceness of the local climate at day or night time.

Additional information In a first test, the wooden beam elements where assembled into one roofbeam. Note that the other composing parts of the roof module have not yet been added, such as the roof sheet and the ceiling screen. Each module beam part is caracterized by the strip of sheet metal nailed to the underside with eyelets for mutual attachment at its ends. The cap at the top assists in keeping the modules aligned.

Planned progress

Internal links


External Links Designing a roof to grow rice using treated grey water and rainwater as part of a hallenge to ensure food security water security, energy security and bio-diversity enhancement on a small lot of land http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adhFyVLLx7M Info from O2-mailinglist by Vishwanath S. http://www.rainwaterclub.org http://www.arghyam.org http://www.indiawaterportal.org http://www.ircsa.org http://www.voicesfromthewaters.com

What other people say...
If you like you can add your own comment