A conical roof or cone roof is a cone-shaped roof that is circular at its base and terminates in a point.
Distribution Conical roofs are frequently found on top of towers in medieval town fortifications and castles, where they may either sit directly on the outer wall of the tower (sometimes projecting beyond it to form eaves) or form a superstructure above the fighting platform or terrace of the tower. The latter necessitated the use of spouts to lead the water away over the top of the walls (e.g. as at Andernach's Alter Krahnen). In this case, the conical roof was surrounded by a defensive wall, a parapet, or a battlement. Such conical roofs were usually constructed using a timber-framed support structure covered with slate. More rarely, they were made of masonry.
A small circular turret or tourelle with a conical roof is called a pepperpot or pepperbox turret.Curl, James Stevens and Susan Wilson. The Oxford Dictionary of Architecture, 3rd edn. Oxford: OUP, 2015, p. 567.
Present Today, conical roofs are more often used in rural areas, either for circular or small square buildings. They are difficult to construct but use locally available materials.Rückert, Klaus and Effatolsadat Shahriari. Guideline for sustainable, energy efficient architecture and construction. Young Cities Research Paper Series, Volume 10. Ed. by Technische Universität Berlin and Road, Housing and Urban Development Research Center, Tehran. Berlin: TUB, 2014, p. 64.
Conical roofs are widely used in Armenian and Georgian church architecture.
A key feature of the Solomon Islands Parliament Building is its conical roof.
See also Dutch gable roof List of roof shapes
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