Tag Archives: overheating

What Scandinavian and Alpine Design Get Right About Glass

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Glass Is Not the Architecture — It Serves the Architecture Large areas of glass have become closely associated with contemporary residential architecture. It is easy to understand why. Glazing can bring daylight deep into a home, create a stronger relationship with the landscape and give rooms a sense of openness that would be difficult to […]

Shading Strategies That Don’t Ruin the View

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First Decide What You Are Actually Trying to Shade When a glazed room becomes uncomfortable, the instinctive response is often: “We need some shading.” But that is not yet a complete design brief. Before choosing blinds, screens, overhangs or a different glass specification, establish exactly what problem the shading is supposed to solve. There are […]

The Comfort Problem Behind Every Glass Box

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Why Replacing Walls With Glass Changes the Room Completely A glass wall may visually disappear, but environmentally it behaves very differently from the insulated wall it replaces. That distinction becomes increasingly important as the amount of glazing grows. An opaque external wall is primarily designed to separate the internal environment from external conditions. Architectural glazing […]

Why North-Facing Glass Behaves Nothing Like South-Facing

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The Fundamental Difference: Direct Sun Versus Diffuse Daylight North- and south-facing windows can use exactly the same glass and still create very different conditions inside a home. The reason begins with the path of the sun. In the UK, the sun travels predominantly across the southern part of the sky. A south-facing elevation therefore has […]

How Orientation Should Shape Every Glazing Decision

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North, South, East and West: What Actually Changes? The direction a window faces changes when sunlight reaches it, the angle at which that sunlight arrives and how solar exposure varies throughout the day. That means two identical panes of glass on different elevations can create very different conditions inside the same home. South-facing glazing can […]

Solar Control Glass Explained Without the Jargon

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What Solar Control Glass Actually Does Solar control glass is designed to reduce the amount of solar energy passing through the glazing and contributing to heat inside the building. That becomes particularly relevant where architecture uses large areas of glass to bring in daylight, open up views and create a stronger connection with the landscape. […]

When Bigger Glass Makes a Home Feel Worse

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Bigger Glass Is Not Automatically Better Architecture Walk through the pages of an architectural magazine or scroll through social media and it is easy to conclude that bigger glazing is always better. Entire walls of glass, dramatic sliding doors and uninterrupted floor-to-ceiling elevations have become visual symbols of luxury home design. While these projects can […]