Trending away from the monopitch
While some clients are still requesting a monopitch roof, which is the flat, slightly-sloping roof you see on many contemporary homes, there’s a swing back to more traditional roofs with gables, hips, dormers and a pitch of 15° or more.
To some extent, this is in response to the leaky building problem. And while it is possible to build a monopitch roof with a greater degree of slope, it really doesn’t look that great.
Fewer homes with heavyweight roofs, such as concrete tiles
Over the past 15 years we’ve really moved away from concrete tiles. Once 80% of the homes we designed had concrete tile roofs, now it’s down to about 15%.
One reason is that the cost of lightweight pressed steel roofs has come down. Now it’s on par with the price of a concrete tile roof. Metal tiles used to be significantly more expensive. In the case of Gerard Colortile, a lightweight pressed steel roof is actually cheaper than concrete. It’s opened up a bucket of choice for the client.
Another reason for the move away from concrete is the load that heavy tiles put on the structure. Apart from the earthquake risk, loading up the structure with a concrete tile roof is going to create some issues. A metal tile roof weighs something like 80% less than a concrete tile roof.
Darker more natural colours
The days of red and blue roofs are gone, except for low end housing, which is usually built by developers. Now clients prefer darker shades of grey, black, dark blue and dark green. Sometimes colour choice is dictated by covenants that require you to make choices that fit in with the local landscape. You also get covenants that simply specify colours that can’t be used (like bright red and blue!). Generally, everything’s leaning to darker, more natural colours.
Greater variation in new subdivisions
We work all over New Zealand and one thing we’ve noticed recently is the increasing variance of house types in new subdivisions. Some are contemporary, some are traditional – they don’t all look the same. It’s nice to see. Homeowners are expressing their individuality more.