“The history of architecture in temperate regions is, we can say, the story of the conquest of light. A hard and ongoing struggle between conflicting functions: one, the wall, designed to support the house (and it is essential that the wall is as solid as possible); the other, the window to illuminate the house (yet the window tends to destroy the strength of the wall). Thus, over the centuries, it has been a struggle between two opposing functions…”

-Le Corbusier

The window is the fundamental architectural element that mediates the relationship between interior and exterior, and between external weather and the internal human viewer. The window is one of the most intimate tissues of architecture in relation to weather. Air passes through it, rain patters against its surface and runs down in, snow accumulates along its eaves, and condensation builds up on the glass pane. With the advent of the first notion of a window, to its subsequent development over millennia, our relationship with weather has changed. The size, shape, placement, quality of glass, and other variable qualities of the window effect how the world appears to us. It logically follows that this changing experience of weather leads to a changing experience of interior space as a whole.

The development of the window, and the need for air, light, and views has also shaped the development of architecture as a whole. Le Corbusier said that there is "a hard and ongoing struggle between conflicting functions; one, the wall, designed to support the house (and it is essential that the wall is solid as possible); the other, the window, to illuminate the house (yet the window tends to destroy the strength of the wall). Thus, over the centuries, it has been a struggle between two opposing functions ... " The development of the window has in turn led to the development of other architectural elements. This project carries us through key disciplinary moments in the history of the window, and the conceptual developments related to weather.

Degree project final animation