I love A-frames, they are cool ... and practical as ordinary housing despite the fact that few of us still think this way

Abstract

The frame hut, roof hut or A-frame as it is variously known is probably one of the earliest forms of fabricated rather than carved or excavated of human shelter. It is an intuitive design that children will make or draw in rudimentary representations of a home or a refuge of some kind. A-frames are also immensely popular as back country accommodation whether as private, club or government designs. As dwellings for temporary or seasonal occupation in often harsh environments they are a cheap, practical solution. That there was a fad for them in the 1950s and 1960s in North America is evidenced by frequent articles in magazines such as Popular Mechanics and their regular appearance in home design publications such as Sunset Books' Cabins and Vacation Houses (1967). They reached their apex in New Zealand, so to speak, in the 1970s with the mass production of A-frame "chalets" by McRae Homes in Timaru which could be ordered in kitset form and which appeared in many towns and cities in the South Island as domestic and holiday dwellings. For the past thirty years, however, they have been seen by many as a joke or a folly that belongs to the 1970s like flares and kaftans; great for a party but not for everyday use. A book written in their defence, Chad Randl's A-frame (2004), has hardly changed that perception. In this paper I argue that the A-frame has much more of merit to it than meets the eye and that there are good reasons for “back-importing” Aframe elements into ordinary house design for the present and future in an environmentally-challenging country such as New Zealand.