When this old world
starts a getting me down,
and people are just too much for me to face.
I'll climb way up to the top of the stairs and all my cares just drift right
into space.
On the roof, it's peaceful as can be and there the world below don't bother
me, no, no.
So when I come home feeling tired and beat, I'll go up where the air is
fresh and sweet.
I'll get far away from the hustling crowd and all the rat-race noise down in
the street.
On the roof, that's the only place I know, look at the city, baby.
Where you just have to wish to make it so, let's go up on the roof.
And at night the stars, they put on a show for free.
And, darling, you can share it all with me, that's what I said, keep on
telling you
That right smack dab in the middle of town, I found a paradise that's
trouble-proof.
And if this old world starts a getting you down, there's room enough for two
up on the roof, up on the roof, up on the roof.
Everything is all right, every thing is all right.
You got the stars above and the city lights below, let's go up on the roof.
2. After listening to this song,
discuss what is meant by the lyrics and how the writer felt. Are the lyrics
applicable today?
3. Create a new verse
that you think might get your generation to listen again to this song!
The
History of Roofing in Australia - A Presentation!
Primary
Middle Secondary Australian
Curriculum General Capability:Information and Communication Technology Capability Australian
Curriculum General Capability:Critical and creative thinking Australian
Curriculum General Capability:Personal and social capability Australian
Curriculum General Capability:Literacy
1. You are to read the
following account of the History of Roofing in Australia.
"The reality is that a pitch of thirty to forty
degrees was necessary to shed water from a shingled roof. The steeper the
pitch, the less likely it was that the roof would leak. Verandah roofs,
which often had a low pitch, were covered with painted canvas or sheet zinc.
In most cases, the builders of these houses knew as much about the weather
as we do. In fact, their buildings were better adapted to the climate than
most of today's new houses. Because they had no means of cooling a house and
only limited heating systems they devised a variety of ingenious methods to
make their dwellings comfortable. A careful look though an old house, with
its verandahs, shutters, high ceilings, ventilated ceiling roses, opening or
fretworked fanlights and many other features will confirm this statement.
Large roof cavities, the result of steeply pitched roofs, insulated houses
and helped maintain a comfortable temperature in extremes of heat or cold.
One of the nineteenth century's most popular roofing materials, shingles,
were cut from a variety of timbers, including eucalypt, casuarina and
stringybark. An experienced shingle-splitter could cut about 700 shingles a
day, enough to cover three square metres of a roof. Shingled roofs were
popular when labour was cheap and trees were free.
The bush yielded a selection of useful building materials. For roofing,
there were thatches of native grassses or the fronts of the grass tree or
'blackboy'. Bush dwellings with walls of bark, slabs, earth or milled timber
were roofed with sheets of bark, which because they could not be nailed,
were held down by thick saplings tied together with greenhide thongs. In the
dry inland where rain was rare, roofs were sometimes formed of brush,
spinifex or boughs. Roofs of sawn and split palings were ocasionally used,
particularly in Tasmania.
While these materials were effective, durable and
freely available on many building sites they were clearly unsuitable for
large-scale housing in cities. Shingles wer an exception and retained a
loyal following in cities and towns across Australia from the first
settlement period right into the twentieth century.
Experiments to produce satisfactory sheet metal roofing were underway in
Britain during the 1820's and 1830's, spurred by the construction of the
large buildings of the industrial revolution: railway stations, factories
and gasworks. In the 1840s, the firm of Morewood and Rogers devised a system
of flat tiles of zinc-coated iron with a rolled edge. Their patented roofing
is still keeping the rain out of many early Australian houses.
Verandahs of early houses were often roofed with canvas, waterproofed with
paint in striped patterns in an allusion to the ancient custom of striping
the roofs of tents. Corrugated galvanised iron roofing, when it eventually
arrived, was curved and painted to resemble canvas.
The use of metal roofing increased when it was realised that iron rolled
into a series of regular corrugations was stronger, weight for weight, than
flat iron sheets. This offered considerable savings in the quantity of metal
required and in the structure of roofs. Hot-dip galvanising, introduced in
the 1840s solved the problem of corrosion.
Galvanised corrugated iron arrived in Australia in about the 1850 and
rapidly became the most widely used roofing material. It was easily and
swiftly applied, even by unskilled labour, light, compact, inexpensive,
fireproof, and immune from insect attack. Enough iron to cover the roof of a
cottage fitted easily onto a dray or cart, making a load that was light
enough to be dragged over bumpy roads to almost any bush building site.
Other popular roofing materials of the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries include slate and tiles. Slate from Britain and Europe was used as
ballast in the ships and come to Australia in the 1830s and, after the
discovery of local supplies in South Australia in 1840 and later in New
South Wales, importing continued. Many slate roofs are notable for their
decorative patterns, formed of slates of different colours and shapes.
Ridging may be of lead, rolled and dressed over a timber dowel, galvanised
iron or steel, cast iron or, after about 1885, of terracotta. The hips of
some Edwardian roofs have concealed flashing with mitted slates to eliminate
the need for capping.
Terracotta tiles have been used in Australia from
shortly after the beginnings of European settlement. They were flat,
unglazed, and resembled wooden shingles in appearance. However, the tile
most commonly found on Australian houses in the Marseilles-pattern, which
takes its name from the Frence city where these tiles originated. Marseilles
tiles were first imported in 1886 and rapidly became popular for the
Federation-style house, which had just been introduced.
Local production began in 1897 but it was not until the First World War
terminated supplies form France that the Wunderlich Company began
manufacturing the tiles in quantity. The orange-red Marseilles-pattern tiles
gave a distinctive appearance to Australian suburbia.(Source:
Totally Dry Roofing)
And in 1940s the concrete
roof tile was born. Australia’s homeowners now had a more expansive and
affordable range of roof tile profiles and colours to choose from....The
kind of innovation that has led to the Monier SOLARtile, Australia’s first
integrated, modular photovoltaic flat tile system. (Source: Monier)
2. What did you learn about roofs
in Australia? Write up 10 interesting facts! Share with a partner.
Primary
Middle Secondary Australian
Curriculum General Capability:Critical and creative thinking Australian
Curriculum General Capability:Personal and social capability
Cooperative
Learning Activity
Lesson Focus:
Lesson focuses on how structural engineers have improved the designs of
building — specifically roofing — over the years to improve the quality of
homes and life. Teams of students work together using simple materials to
design a roof that will keep the contents of a box dry during a water test.
Students determine both the shape of the roof and materials used for
construction, test their designs, and present their findings to the class.