HIPPED ROOF, in architecture, a roof which starts on all sides on the same level at the eaves and slopes up towards a ridge or point in the centre. Hipped roofs were apparently common in the domestic work of the Mediterranean countries from the time of Greece, and are still the most common form for informal buildings throughout the near east and in Italy, southern France and Spain. With the coming of the Renaissance into northern Europe the hipped roof tended to supersede the gable, owing to the emphasis on the horizontal line of the cornice. Thus most of the Renaissance chateaux of France and many of the earlier Georgian manors of England have hipped roofs. A remarkable development of hipped roof design was made by the Chinese, particularly in the north, where many of the great temple and palace halls have widely projecting and gently curved hipped roofs in which the hips (the intersections of the slopes) and the ridges are richly decorated with moulded tiles and terminated by fantastic dragons or grotesque beasts.