We love to fill our houses with wonderful creative decoration that brings us pleasure every time we enter a room. It’s these decorative features that transform a house into a home. But for those houses lucky enough to be surrounded by captivating landscapes, why shut out all that natural decoration only to replace it with interior imitations?
Using either glass partitions or ground-flush, floor-to-ceiling sliding glass panels, by inviting the environment in, specifiers can connect interior and exterior spaces for a deeper connection with nature, allowing the local landscape itself to become the largest interior in the home. Here is a selection of residential projects that use the latest innovations in sliding windows to form a relationship with the surrounding landscape:
House Winkel / Sasaki
Erlenbach, Switzerland
The rear of House Winkel extends like a telescope away from its front, providing uninterrupted views across Lake Zurich. And just like the best chocolate selection boxes, the Swiss house’s floorplan is multi-layered, with three tiers of sunlit living space.
With so much sun-beaten glass, House Winkel’s interior climate is treated to the effect of natural solar gain. It’s warming during the winter, but the solar gain can pose a problem when the sun is at its strongest and most persistent in the summer. To avoid this problem, however, the sliding doors and glass windows of House Winkel feature SwissFineLine automated exterior shades, stopping sunlight before it reaches the glass.
House on Lake / Vera Gloor
Zurich, Switzerland
Meanwhile, just across the water sits another house with multi-layered glass-edged architecture. The Lake Zurich Villa’s huge 4.5-meter-wide and 2.6-meter-high glass sections provide floor-to-ceiling glazing that covers two corners of the building’s rear. But thanks to Air-Lux’s sliding window cornering products, although weighing in at up to 100kg, the immense motor-operated windows can open and close effortlessly, even at the two corners, giving panoramic balcony access along with views to match.
House Solothurn / ssm architekten
Solothurn, Switzerland
Also using automated glass corner windows to connect with and experience its surrounding rural landscape on all sides, this double-level family home in Solothurn, Switzerland, features a transparent insect protection screen, concealed within its frame when not in use. When applied, the tear-proof mesh protects residents from summertime pests without impeding the tranquillity of the countryside location.
Villa Düsseldorf / Braun Architekten
Düsseldorf, Germany
Sometimes it’s what you don’t see, that makes the experience all the more special. Villa Düsseldorf’s form sits like a VR headset in the more urban landscape of Düsseldorf, Germany. Its enveloping exterior acts like a pair of architectural blinkers, blocking out the rest of the street and allowing residents to focus their view on the environment.
Architect Dirk Henning Braun of Braunarchitektur covered the entire length of the house’s rear aperture with end-to-end sliding glass, leading residents out to extended balconies on both floors. By utilizing SwissFineLine’s automated operation system, they can seamlessly experience interior and exterior areas, simultaneously interacting with other family members in both.
House Lucerne / SPPA Architekten
Lucerne, Switzerland
On the banks of Lake Lucerne, this family home uses its sloping footprint to present glorious views of another beautiful Swiss vista. By positioning the living spaces and communal areas to look out towards the landscape and rear garden, the house allows parents to see and interact with children in the garden while they work, cook or simply relax inside, without losing track of them.
Strong and secure SwissFineLine Burglary protection glass windows ensure the family’s security is never in doubt with bullet-resistant, security-monitored, and multi-point-locked glass.
House Meggen / König Architektur
Lucerne, Switzerland
Meanwhile, a short way down the bank is the municipality of Meggen. The Meggen House shares similar views as the Lucerne House, with a balcony overlooking the shared lake that draws in natural light along with the lake and mountains beyond. But by inserting a central atrium into the structure, encased in more Air-Lux sliding window-connect glass, König Architektur was able to – quite literally – bring the outside in, with natural light coursing through the interior from both sides.
The security of the glass partitions’ inflatable air seal means unexpected draught pockets don’t affect the residents’ comfort on the inside, while the all-glass balcony railing uses specialized security glass to protect residents on the outside.
With their glass-wrapped facades overlooking lakes and valleys, it’s clear to see why architects on these projects exchanged walls for windows. Automated floor-to-ceiling windows combine functionality with a sleek aesthetic to compliment any interior style.
As long as there’s a good view outside.
