Roofing in Mozambique

Mozambique's long Indian Ocean coast has given it two strong roofing traditions: the stone-and-lime buildings of Swahili and Portuguese coastal towns, and houses of poles, earth and palm-leaf thatch, known on Mozambique Island as macuti. Over the last seventy years, cement blocks and sheet roofs of corrugated iron or fibre cement have steadily replaced both.

Climate and hazards

UN-Habitat's housing profile lists cyclones, heavy rains, floods, droughts, strong winds and earthquakes among the country's main risks. In 2013 alone disasters killed 117 people, displaced 172,000 and caused damage of about US$500 million, roughly 10% of the national budget. Most households protect their homes by improvised means.

Roofing history

The Portuguese established a port and naval base on Mozambique Island in 1507, and the island served as the seat of colonial government until 1898, when the capital moved to Lourenco Marques (now Maputo). The Chapel of Nossa Senhora de Baluarte, built in 1522, is often described as the oldest European building in the Southern Hemisphere, and Fort Sao Sebastiao dates from 1558 to 1620. The island's architecture combines Swahili, Arab and European influences and has kept a remarkable unity because the same building techniques, materials and decorative principles were used without interruption.

Since the 1950s, and especially since the late 1970s, houses have increasingly been built of cement blocks with fibre-cement or corrugated iron roofs. After the 1976-1992 war, people moving to the island caused overcrowding, and scarce, expensive materials made maintenance difficult.

Traditional and vernacular roofs

• Macuti house: a frame of mangrove poles (siki) and bamboo under a generous hipped roof carried on two main posts about 2.5 m (8 ft) high, covered with coconut palm leaves. Walls are a curtain of mangrove sticks (laca laca) filled with stones, earth and sand (pau a pique); a plant extract (murrapa, Cissus integrifolia) was added for strength and water resistance. See Macuti house.
• Stone town houses: stone and lime buildings in the northern half of the island.
• Canico settlements: reed-built housing of the colonial era on short-term leased land, designed to be dismantled.

Roofing today

UN-Habitat reports that fewer than 2% of homes are built entirely with conventional materials such as masonry and zinc sheet, that most people build informally with local materials, and that up to 60% of construction materials are imported. On Mozambique Island, a 2011 ICOMOS study found that only about 35% of houses still had macuti or other leaves as roof covering, and that macarasse leaves had largely replaced coconut macuti because they were easier to obtain.

Codes, standards and regulation

The general regulation for urban buildings is the Regulamento Geral das Edificacoes Urbanas (REGEU). Construction licences under Decree 2/2004 may not exceed 10 years, and urban land is defined by the 2006 Urban Land Regulation. Most self-built housing does not go through formal licensing. On Mozambique Island, local by-laws have restricted urban change since 1878, and Law 10/88 of 1988 classifies buildings older than 1920 as national cultural heritage.

Industry

UN-Habitat notes heavy dependence on imported materials.

Notable roofs

• Island of Mozambique (UNESCO 1991): stone and lime town in the north, macuti town in the south. The island is about 3 km (1.9 mi) long and 200 to 500 m (660 to 1,640 ft) wide, with about 14,000 residents.

Local roofing terms

• macuti (makuti): coconut palm-leaf roof covering.
• macarasse: leaves now commonly used instead of macuti.
• siki: mangrove poles used for the frame.
• chapa de zinco (Portuguese): zinc or galvanised roofing sheet.

Sources and gaps

No information on domestic roofing manufacturers was found in published sources.

National census tables of roof material (2007 or 2017): published information is limited. Detail on inland vernacular forms (for example Makonde or Shona-speaking areas) was not found in published sources.