Roofing in Madagascar

Madagascar's roofs reflect its varied climate and a strong set of customs about which materials belong to the living and which to the dead. Rectangular houses with steep, peaked gable roofs are the norm across the island, thatched with grass, reeds or palm leaves, while in the central highlands brick houses with clay tile roofs and verandas became common from the 19th century. Today metal sheet and plant thatch account for almost all roofs.

Climate and hazards

Tropical cyclones are the main roof hazard. In February 2012 Cyclone Giovanna tore off the wooden shingles of the royal house at Ambohimanga, exposing its interior to the weather. Coastal thatch traditionally has slightly overhanging eaves that throw rain clear of the foundations.

Roofing history

Royal highland building. In the Merina tradition of the central highlands, houses of the living were built of wood and plant materials and tombs of stone. King Andrianampoinimerina (reigned 1787-1810) banned building in stone, brick or earth within Antananarivo. Aristocratic timber houses carried crossed gable timbers called tandrotrano (roof horns), whose length signalled rank.

Missionaries and new materials. Louis Gros designed the Tranovola palace in the Rova of Antananarivo for Radama I in 1819. James Cameron demonstrated sun-dried bricks in 1826, and in 1831 Jean Laborde introduced fired brick roof tiles, which began to replace the rice-straw thatch then common in the capital. Laborde built the Queen's Palace in the Rova in 1839-1841. Restrictions on aristocratic use of stone and brick were relaxed in 1867 and abolished in 1869. Brick house-building based on London Missionary Society models spread under Ranavalona II (1868-1883), producing highland houses with shortened roof horns, carved verandas and, later, clay-tile roofs. French colonisation began in 1896. Fire destroyed buildings of the Rova in 1995.

Traditional and vernacular roofs

• East coast houses: low houses on stilts thatched with traveller's palm (ravinala), whose trunks are also pounded flat into boards for floors and roofs. See Ravinala thatch.
• North: raffia palm used in place of ravinala.
• West and south-west: palms around Mahajanga, rushes around Toliara, reeds near rivers.
• Highland (Merina, Betsileo): houses built flush to the ground with steep gable roofs, often on a central pillar (andry); later the earthen and brick trano gasy ("Malagasy house") with verandas and tiled roofs.
• Zafimaniry: large rectangular timber houses with peaked roofs and overhanging eaves.
• South-east: zebu horns were sometimes fixed to the gable peak.

Roofing today

In the unweighted 2018 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey sample (17,870 households with a recorded roof):

Main roof material (HC5)	Share of sampled households
Metal sheet / aluminium (tole)	33.6%
Grass bundles (mottes d'herbes)	32.6%
Thatch / palm leaf (chaume / feuille de palme)	26.3%
Palm / bamboo / zozoro	4.0%
Ceramic tiles	0.8%
Wood planks	0.7%
Cement	0.4%
Other or no roof	1.6%

Plant-based roofs together exceed metal sheet in the sample, while tiles, once the mark of the highland brick house, now appear on fewer than 1% of recorded homes.

Codes, standards and regulation

Ambohimanga has had legal protection since 1982-1983 and is managed by the Office of the Cultural Site of Ambohimanga (OSCAR).

Notable roofs

• Royal Hill of Ambohimanga (UNESCO 2001): Andrianampoinimerina's rosewood house, whose peaked roof rests on a 10 m (33 ft) central rosewood pillar, once thatched and now shingled; sacred wooden tomb houses rebuilt in 2008. See Ambohimanga royal houses.
• Rova of Antananarivo: royal palace complex given its final form in 1872, damaged by fire in 1995.

Local roofing terms

• tandrotrano: roof horns formed by crossed gable timbers.
• andry: central roof-bearing pillar.
• ravinala: traveller's palm, used for thatch and boards.
• trano gasy: "Malagasy house", the highland earthen or brick house.
• tole (French): corrugated metal sheet.

Sources and gaps

No national building code or roofing standard was identified. No information on domestic roofing manufacturers was found in published sources.

Survey shares are unweighted sample counts. National census roof tables (RGPH 2018) and data on local tile production: published information is limited.