7 Peaked Structures With Pyramid-Inspired Roofs
The most common roof shapes include gable, hipped, mansard, flat, and shed, but the pyramid has also influenced a number of architects who have adapted its geometry in some of their homes and buildings.
The result is both dramatic and functional, as often these roofs encourage light and views into the building. Here are seven pyramidal structures that get straight to the point.
House on Prickly Mountain
Pioneer of the design-build movement, David Sellers's Pyramid House on Prickly Mountain, Vermont, cuts a striking silhouette with a sharply angled roof, and a raised terrace in the front of the house.
Designed by London practice Henning Stummel Architects, this London residence is composed of six red, metal-clad pavilions with high, pyramidal-shaped roofs crowned with skylights that flood the interiors with sunlight.
Architect Paolo Caravello of Helsinki-based practice Void created this prism-shaped house near a lake in Sysmä, Finland, with a glass-topped pyramidal roof that transformed the top level of the house into a fully glazed observatory where its owners can look out to stunning views of nature.
In the Belgian city of Knokke-Heist is a school designed by Amsterdam studio NL Architects, which has a turfed pyramidal roof with curving sides atop one of the administrative offices.
For this residence ensconced in nature near Brazil’s Itamambuca Beach, São Paulo studio Arquitetura Gui Mattos used a concrete slab for the roof structure, which takes the form of an inverted prism, with its tip pointing downwards from the center of the ceiling.
When Rotterdam-based firm Studio Marco Vermeulen renovated the Biesbosch Museum in the wetlands of De Biesbosch National Park, they added green roofs to the hexagonal pyramids of the original building to help it blend in with its surroundings.
Traditional Kentish hop-drying towers inspired the pyramid-like roof forms of this country estate home, which won its creators—James Macdonald Wright of Macdonald Wright Architects, and Niall Maxwell of Rural Office—the Royal Institute of British Architects’ 2017 "House of the Year" award.
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