The process of city administration is invisible to the citizen who sees little evidence of its human components but feels the sharp pain of taxation. With increasingly poor public service, his desires and needs are more insistently expressed. Yet his expressions of need seem
. . . even if the windows are beautifully placed, glare can still be a problem—natural doors and windows (221). The softness of the light, in and around the window, makes an enormous difference to the room inside. The shape of the frames can do a part of it—deep reveals (223)—but it still needs additional help.
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Light filtered through leaves, or tracery, is wonderjful. But why?
We know that light filtering through a leafy tree is very pleasant—it lends excitement, cheerfulness, gaiety; and we know that areas of uniform lighting create dull, uninteresting spaces. But why?
1. The most obvious reason: direct light coming from a point source casts strong shadows, resulting in harsh images with strong contrasts. And people have an optical habit which makes this contrast worse: our eye automatically reinforces boundaries so that they read sharper than they are. For example, a color chart with strips of different colors set next to each other will appear as though there are dark lines between the strips. These contrasts and hard boundaries are unpleasant—objects appear to have a hard character, and our eyes, unable to adjust to the contrast, cannot pick up the details.
For all these reasons, we have a natural desire to diffuse light with lamp shades or indirect lighting, so that the images created by the light will be “softer,” that is, that the boundaries perceived are not sharp, there is less contrast, fewer shadows, and the details are easier to see. This is also why photographers use reflected light instead of direct light when photographing objects; they pick up details which otherwise would be lost in shadow.
2. The second reason: to reduce the glare around the window. When there is bright light coming in through the window, it creates glare against the darkness of the wall around the window —see deep reveals (223). Filtering the light especially at the
238 FILTERED LIGHT
edges of the window cuts down the glare by letting in less light.
3. A third reason which is pure conjecture: it may simply be that an object which has small scale patterns of light dancing on it is sensually pleasing, and stimulates us biologically. Some filmmakers claim the play of light upon the retina is naturally sensuous, all by itself.
To create filtered light, partially cover those windows which get direct sunlight, with vines and lattices. Leaves are special because they move. And the edge of the window can have fine tracery—that is, the edge of the glass itself, not the frame, so that the light coming in is gradually stronger from the edge to the center of the window; the tracery is best toward the top of the window where the light is strongest. Many old windows combine these ideas.
Therefore:
Where the edge of a window or the overhanging eave of a roof is silhouetted against the sky, make a rich, detailed taspestry of light and dark, to break up the light and soften it.
You can do this, most easily, with climbing plants trained to climb around the outside of the window—climbing plants (246). If there are no plants, you can also do it beautifully with simple canvas awnings—canvas roofs (244), perhaps colored— warm colors (250). You can also help to filter light by making the panes smaller, more delicate, and more elaborate high in the window where the light is strong—small panes (239). . . .
| 239 SMALL PANES** |
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. . . this pattern gives the glazing for the windows in interior WINDOWS (194), NATURAL DOORS AND WINDOWS (22l), WINDOWS WHICH OPEN WIDE (236), and SOLID DOORS WITH GLASS (237). In most cases, the glazing can be built as a continuation of the
FRAMES AS THICKENED EDGES (225) .
When plate glass windows became possible, people thought that they would put us more directly in touch with nature. In fact, they do the opposite.
They alienate us from the view. The smaller the windows are, and the smaller the panes are, the more intensely windows help connect us with what is on the other side.
This is an important paradox. The clear plate window seems as though it ought to bring nature closer to us, just because it seems to be more like an opening, more like the air. But, in fact, our contact with the view, our contact with the things we see through windows is affected by the way the window frames them. When we consider a window as an eye through which to see a view, we must recognize that it is the extent to which the window frames the view, that increases the view, increases its intensity, increases its variety, even increases the number of views we seem to see—and it is because of this that windows which are broken into smaller windows, and windows which are filled with tiny panes, put us so intimately in touch with what is on the other side. It is because they create far more frames: and it is the multitude of frames which makes the view.
Thomas Markus, who has studied windows extensively, has arrived at the same conclusion: windows which are broken up make for more interesting views. (“The Function of Window's— A Reappraisal,” Building Science, Vol. 2, 1967, pp. 101-4). He points out that small and narrow windows afford different views from different positions in the room, while the view tends to be the same through large windows or horizontal ones.
We believe that the same thing, almost exactly, happens
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CONSTRUCTION
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| Six views. |
within the window frame itself. The following picture shows a simple landscape, broken up as it might be by six panes. Instead of one view, we see six views. The view becomes alive because the small panes make it so.
Another argument for small panes: Modern architecture and building have deliberately tried to make windows less like windows and more as though there was nothing between you and the outdoors. Yet this entirely contradicts the nature of windows.
It is the function of windows to offer a view and provide a rela
tionship to the outside, true. But this does not mean that they should not at the same time, like the walls and roof, give you a sense of protection and shelter from the outside. It is uncomfortable to feel that there is nothing between you and the outside, when in fact you are inside a building. It is the nature of windows to give you a relationship to the outside and at the same
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| Small fanes in Mendocino. |
time give a sense of enclosure.
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Not only that. Big areas of clear glass are sometimes even dangerous. People walk into plate glass windows, because they look like air. By comparison, windows with small panes give a clear functional message—the frames of the panes definitely tell you that something is there separating you from the outside. And they help to create filtered light (238).
Therefore:
Divide each window into small panes. These panes can be very small indeed, and should hardly ever be more than a foot square. To get the exact size of the panes, divide the width and height of the window by the number of panes. Then each window will have different sized panes according to its height and width.
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