Solar skyline

UK city skylines are famous for funky architecture, but soon homes across this country and the rest of the world could all have bold designs to boost the energy production of rooftop solar panels.

Researchers from

are developing optimal roof shapes for directing the Sun's rays on to solar cells. The shape will differ depending on the location, so the roof of a UK home will look different to one in, say, Brazil.

'What we find with our computer models is the further north we go the more shallow the roof tends to be,' said Malcolm McCulloch, the principal investigator of the one-year project. 'The roofs all look paraboloid-ish. They have some quite odd features on them, but they look quite attractive.'

McCulloch compared the roofs to Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí's unique Barcelona buildings that integrate natural organic shapes such as parabolic arches and hyperboloid structures.

He said the researchers should have a basic prototype by next year and the roofs could be constructed on new homes within the next three years.