Seeing Nothing | Sherwin Sucaldito

By Sherwin Sucaldito on March 3, 2010

I’ve been noticing a returning trend of glass walls in modern homes coming back again in numbers. Previously, I have seen several modern bedroom trends utilizing the glass walls/doors throughout several condos downtown. When I saw the Chicago Spire exhibit several months ago, I believe their suites featured a curved glass wall that rotated around the room area for an open / close option.

Many recent lofts were also designed with “half walls” where the top of the walls were left open to allow natural light to floor through. This became standard in many developments as bedrooms were located in the rear and needed natural light. Several owners have installed either glass panels, or glass block afterwards to have a level of privacy.

I went to visit several lofts in the past few months that instead of having fixed half walls, the owners trying to keep the “heart” of the loft intact, installed moveable glass walls; one of which only had one wall made of glass, leaving the space ultimately open to the rest of the space as well as the panoramic view. If I have the opportunity to go back, I will take some photos to post as I did not have a camera with me that day.

This was a great design element, which allowed natural light to flow through and allowed continual movement of the space.
I am interested in learning that beyond aesthetics, what the energy costs would be to heat/cool the space. I have heard about automatic film transparency that automatically darkens/lightens based on user preference. Very similar to those Transitions lenses.

I came across a photo collection on LIVINGPOD for those interested –