Roofing in Libya

Libya is mostly Saharan desert with a narrow Mediterranean coastal strip. Its most thoroughly documented roofing tradition is that of the oasis town of Ghadames near the borders with Tunisia and Algeria, a UNESCO World Heritage site whose houses combine mud brick, palm timber and a remarkable system of rooftop terraces.

Climate and hazards

Away from the coast, Libya is extremely hot and dry, and heat is the main load a roof must handle. Rain is infrequent but not harmless: UNESCO reports that heavy rains, together with fire, have recently damaged the old town of Ghadames, whose earth buildings depend on regular maintenance. Changes in water supply, humidity and temperature are listed as pressures on the site.

Roofing history

Ghadames was occupied by the indigenous Phazanii people from at least the late first millennium BC and has been a stop on trans-Saharan trade routes for at least 2,000 years. Its old town was built of mud brick on stone foundations, with palm trunks, woodwork and masonry, and limed walls. Building materials were routinely recycled.

In the 1970s the government built new housing outside the old town, and the old town was depopulated through the 1990s, leaving buildings at risk of collapse from lack of upkeep. Many families still return in summer because the old houses are cooler. The old town was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1986 and has been on the List of World Heritage in Danger since 2016, together with Libya's four other World Heritage sites, because of conflict-related risk.

Traditional and vernacular roofs

• Ghadames houses: usually two storeys, with stores on the ground floor, family rooms above, and open-air roof terraces reserved for women and used by children. Compact roofs have high parapets for privacy (see Old Town of Ghadames).
• Covered streets: alleys roofed over by the houses form an almost underground network, lit by regular openings in the roof, called tinawt or klava.
• Flat earth roofs: as across North Africa, flat roofs on timber or palm joists with layers of earth are the general traditional form in the oases (see Roofing in North Africa).

Roofing today

Reinforced concrete flat roofs are the norm in modern North African construction (see Roofing in North Africa).

Codes, standards and regulation

Ghadames is protected under Libyan Law No. 3/1994, and its management relies on a ten-year plan that addresses climate change and the safeguarding of traditional construction techniques.

Notable roofs

• Old Town of Ghadames: mud-brick houses with women's roof terraces and roofed streets. Proactive maintenance of the water system began in 2008.

Local roofing terms

• tinawt / klava: openings in the roofs of Ghadames's covered streets that admit light and air.

Sources and gaps

Roofing elsewhere in the country, and on present-day materials: published information is limited. No household survey or census table of roof materials for Libya was found in published sources. Libya-specific shares of roof materials: published information is limited. No national building or roofing code was found in published sources. No information on domestic roofing manufacturers was found.

Coastal vernacular roofs (for example in Tripoli's old city), the mountain villages of the Nafusa, colonial-era Italian building and modern roof materials were not found in published sources.