science

Traditional Chinese roofing

Traditional Chinese roofing is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Traditional Chinese roofing rather than just read about it. In short: Traditional Chinese roofing refers to the numerous types of roofing, and roofing elements, employed in historic Chinese architecture. Traditional Chinese architecture employed a number of different roofing styles, which utilized different shapes, slopes, and ridges.

Key takeaways

Traditional Chinese roofing belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Traditional Chinese roofing to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Traditional Chinese roofing from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Traditional Chinese roofing refers to the numerous types of roofing, and roofing elements, employed in historic Chinese architecture. Traditional Chinese architecture employed a number of different roofing styles, which utilized different shapes, slopes, and ridges. The types of roofs would vary by historical era, with certain types of roofs gaining particular prominence through the reigns of certain dynasties. Other factors which shaped roofs in traditional Chinese architecture included precipitation and cultural connotations.

Varieties

Traditional Chinese architecture employed numerous different roofing styles, most of which were sloped, although some flat roofs (Chinese: 平屋顶; pinyin: píng wūdǐng) were employed. Flat roofs were particularly common in regions of Chinese with less precipitation, such as northern China. Among sloped roofs (Chinese: 坡屋顶; pinyin: pō wūdǐng), traditional Chinese architecture employs single slope roofs (Chinese: 單坡顶; pinyin: dān pō dǐng), two slope roofs (Chinese: 两坡顶; pinyin: liǎng pō dǐng), and four slope roofs (Chinese: 四坡顶; pinyin: sì pō dǐng). Depending on the type of gable employed, there are two styles of two slope roofs: gable roofs (Chinese: 硬山顶; pinyin: yìngshān dǐng, also known as baoguiqi) and xuanshan roofs (Chinese: 悬山顶; pinyin: xuánshān dǐng, also known as overhanging gable roofs). Among four slope roofs, there are two styles: the five-ridged hip roof (Chinese: 庑殿顶; pinyin: wǔdiàn dǐng, also called the Chinese Hipped Roof or the fudian roof) and the nine-ridged xieshan roof (Chinese: 歇山顶; pinyin: xiēshān dǐng). Traditional Chinese architecture also includes many types of tented roofs (Chinese: 攒尖顶; pinyin: zǎnjiān dǐng), including three-corner tents (Chinese: 三角攒尖; pinyin: sānjiǎo zǎnjiān), four-corner tents (Chinese: 四角攒尖; pinyin: sìjiǎo zǎnjiān), six-corner tents (Chinese: 六角攒尖; pinyin: liùjiǎo zǎnjiān), eight-corner tents (Chinese: 八角攒尖; pinyin: bājiǎo zǎnjiān), and rounded tents (Chinese: 圆攒尖; pinyin: yuán zǎnjiān). Ridgeless roofs, such as cuanjian roofs, have also been employed in traditional Chinese roofing, most notably, perhaps, in the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests at the Temple of Heaven.

Other roof types include kui roofs (Chinese: 盔顶; pinyin: kuī dǐng), lu roofs (Chinese: 盝顶; pinyin: lù dǐng, also called open flat roofs), and cross roofs (Chinese: 十字脊顶; pinyin: shízì jí dǐng). Lu roofs have a flat top, with four diagonal ridges surrounding the top. These roofs were particularly common throughout the Yuan dynasty. Some traditional Chinese buildings have swastika-shaped roofs (Chinese: 卐字顶; pinyin: wànzì dǐng), due to the shape's historic connotations of luck and auspiciousness. Roofs joined by multiple pieces, known as joined roofs (Chinese: 句连搭顶; pinyin: gōu lián dā dǐng) were often constructed in traditional Chinese architecture to enable a large floor area without much height. Roofs with juanpeng ridges (Chinese: 卷棚脊; pinyin: juǎnpéng jí), known as juanpeng roofs (Chinese: 卷棚顶; pinyin: juǎnpéng dǐng) or parabolic roofs, have been common in Chinese architecture since ancient times. Many buildings at the Chengde Mountain Resort, a Qing dynasty complex of imperial palaces, employ juanpeng roofs. Checkerboard roofs (Chinese: 棋盘心屋面顶; pinyin: qípán xīn wūmiàn dǐng), named due to their checkered patterns, have also been employed in residential architecture.

Elements

Traditional Chinese roofs are also distinguished by a number of distinct roofing elements, such as ridges. In addition to the main ridges (Chinese: 大脊; pinyin: dà jí), certain traditional Chinese roofs have additional ornamental ridges, such as qingshui ridges (Chinese: 清水脊; pinyin: qīngshuǐ jí) and juanpeng ridges (Chinese: 卷棚脊; pinyin: juǎnpéng jí). Certain types of xuanshan roofs (Chinese: 悬山顶; pinyin: xuánshān dǐng, also known as overhanging gable roofs) employ juanpeng ridges at each end of the gable, in lieu of a main ridge. In the county-level city of Jinjiang, in Fujian province, many older houses have downspouts (known locally as chuizhu) coming down from the edges of their roofs.

See also Chinese architecture List of roof shapes

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Traditional Chinese roofing

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Traditional Chinese roofing claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Traditional Chinese roofing before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Traditional Chinese roofing ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Traditional Chinese roofing

In research: Traditional Chinese roofing appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Traditional Chinese roofing in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Traditional Chinese roofing is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Architecture in China, Roofs, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Traditional Chinese roofing outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Traditional Chinese roofing in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Traditional Chinese roofing means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Traditional Chinese roofing out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Traditional Chinese roofing in simple terms?

Why does Traditional Chinese roofing matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Traditional Chinese roofing?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Traditional Chinese roofing.