Architect Notebook ...... Openings & Elevations

openings in an external wall

OPENINGS

Planning the pattern of openings in an external wall has long exercised the designer’s imagination; the classical language of architecture offered an ordering system of proportions for this task which Le Corbusier was to reinterpret as variously ‘Regulating Lines’, and ‘Le Modulor’. These were evolved to ensure a building’s order and harmony, including its elevational treatment.

Whilst the primary consideration when placing orifices within the wall must be the provision of light and access, areas of void within an elevation may have other purposes. For example, entrances have symbolic importance as thresholds and such openings must be fashioned with this in mind.

Moreover, within a framed building a continuous clerestory window may effect by separation a visual transition between roof and wall, should the eaves project, this will also provide reflected light from the roof’s external offsite, an effect heightened if the offsite projects over water. In a similar fashion vertical strips of glazing adjacent to a column can highlight the column, again assisting in the process of ‘reading’ a framed building.

ELEVATIONS

Indeed, as has already been indicated, our whole attitude towards structure, its expression or suppression, and how structure interacts with openings within the fabric, can profoundly influence the elevational outcome of buildings.

Even within a simple load bearing masonry wall there are several ways in which window openings may be fashioned and these are determined largely by relationships between the plane of the wall and the plane of the glass. It is possible for the glass to be flush with the external wall so that the elevation reads as a taut plane; this will give generous reveals and sills internally which will reflect light and help to minimize glare. Conversely, should the glass coincide with the internal wall face then deep external reveals will impart a robustness to the facade absent in the former example. 

Flush/recessed fenestration 

Developing the elevation further, the designer may wish to express sills, lintels, light shelves and external shading devices further to articulate the facade and to provide visual intensity. Moreover the design of openings may indicate by differentiation, a hierarchy of spaces which they serve, again helping us to ‘read’ the building.