Why do houses have shingles and slanted roofs, but most other buildings have flat tops?

Question

Why do houses have shingles and slanted roofs, but most other buildings have flat tops?

In: 8443

Answer 1

Architect here. The main reason is that people generally don’t like flat roofs on houses.

In western tradition, houses have had sloped roofs, though that varies by region and country. In some places, houses have flat roofs more often then not. But western culture tends to identify more with, say, European traditions, and those traditions include sloped roofs on houses. So when looking at a house, most people want the traditional “look” of a house.