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By Mark Lundegren

One of the biggest contributors to successful buildings is the design and placement of windows, including glazed doors and skylights.

While this is measurably and undoubtedly true, the topic of windows is often only a secondary consideration to architects, builders, and building owners…mistakenly taken up after, rather than concurrently with, the planning of walls, roofs, and their structural underpinnings.

We’d like to spend a few minutes discussing some window essentials, to inspire and help you to make superior design and building choices in this crucial area.

Window Elegance Without Efficiency & Efficiency Without Elegance

The American architect Frank Lloyd Wright was a leader in the integrated use of windows in modern building design. Influenced by traditional Japanese design practices, as his Rosenbaum House above suggests, Wright recommended that window design and placement be part of our overall thinking about a building’s shape and fabric, and the ambient space that floors, walls, and ceilings naturally combine to create.

Wright in particular abhorred design thinking that led to the conceptual cutting of holes in preordained and immovable walls for windows and doors. Instead, he encouraged seeing these building elements in a more holistic way, where permeable and solid materials flowed harmoniously from one to another in designed patterns, each element possessing an intrinsic beauty while contributing to a larger design scheme.

Continue reading “Windows On Our World”