Outdoors and Indoors Got Married

Glass House, AR Design Studio, Hampshire, UK

Outdoors and indoors got married; glass officiated the ceremony. That’s basically the dialogue of AR Design Studio’s Glass House, a contemporary extension built onto a traditional English manor house in Winchester.

The crisp, white interior is a protected space that is flooded with sunlight thanks to an architectural glass box structure and numerous skylights and windows. The transparent tendencies and frameless nature of this home make it feel feather light.

Not wanting the house to waft away in the breeze, the architects anchor it to solid ground with a floating glass staircase that makes a strong yet airy impression and stays in rhythm with the rest of the structure.

Skylights, frameless windows and doors with skyframe www.mestreraposa.com

New and Old are Merging Together!

Stone House Transformation
Project by Wespi de Meuron Romeo Architects

This is an example of a beautiful refurbishment of a stone village house in Scaiano, Switzerland.  Some of the traditional features were incorporated into the new design of the house.  Lots of concrete, wood and glass giving it a modern yet rustic feel in keeping with the original essence of the space.

The original substance of this historic stone house consists in a main building with a cellar with vault and two floors above with kitchen, living and sleeping spaces and a later added annex, also completely made in solid natural stone.

The stone walls were mainly maintained, just the joints had to be remade. The isolation is applied at the inside of the walls. All wooden beam floors were replaced with concrete floors, which reinforce the old walls additionally.

The main architectural target of the intervention was to carve out the force of the massive stonewalls and to gain this archaic simplicity of the volume of the historic building.

The glass façade in front the rooms, towards the lake, has been placed with a distance of about 60 cm from the old stonewalls. This glass front protects against the outside climate and it’s like a second skin behind the effective facade.

This concept allows on the one hand the authentic conservation of the historic stone façade, which tells the history of the house and on the other hand, it generates zenith light for the rooms with exceptional light reflections. It would not have been possible otherwise to get sunlight into the rooms, in such a village structure with narrow streets.

The new intervention is not contrasting the existing substance, new and old are merging together and creating a new ensemble!

Looking for doors and windows which fit perfectly into your dream project?
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A Dialogue with the Sky

Casa Sardinera, Jávea, Alicante, Spain by Ramón Esteve

Fragmenting the Horizon

Located in a setting of great beauty and valuable landscape, in front of the Mediterranean Sea, between El Portixol and Cala Blanca, the Sardinera House lays on the top of a hillside, lined by a headland entering the sea on a bay of turquoise waters.

“A place of contemplation and relaxation that exalts the emotions offered by the surrounding natural environment”. This is how Spanish architect Ramon Esteve describes Casa Sardinera. This basic and uncontaminated space draws lymph from the light and nature typical of the Mediterranean and a landscape of unquestionable charm.

The interiors, patio and swimming pool stand out for the intense expressiveness of their materials, fruit of some highly textural finishes: concrete for the cantilevered external volumes, glass and wood in the interiors.

Glass corners in various dimensions create an optical illusion of spatial compression and expansion: in the living room, the impressive panoramic window of over two metres seems to dialogue with the sky while, in the bedrooms, the glass balcony interconnects the indoor and outdoor spaces, almost blurring any distinction between the two.

The swimming pool overhanging the turquoise water embraces the house and seems to touch the sea, offering a breathtaking view that has few equals.

Mestre Raposa is your specialist for panoramic windows with big dimensions!
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