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Tips to Achieving Contemporary Window Design

Key guidelines for window design that brings contemporary sensibility to your home’s overall style.

Today’s home is no longer reserved for a single function. It encompasses work, play, and nurturing family connections under one roof. This sense of purpose can be traced back to the early days of contemporary home design, which is rooted in the belief that a home should be a “machine for the living.”

Every aspect of the building materials is considered for how its raw form contributes to a design that can shift to support how you want to live in your home and the lifestyle you desire.

Windows are vital to contemporary design. The size, placement and function of each window helps define a home. It also contributes to the evolving functionality of spaces within a structure. Some guidelines for any new build or remodel that bring contemporary sensibility to your home’s overall style include:

1. Deliver light as far into the space as possible: when utilized correctly, the constantly changing light that flows through windows can transform an interior.  Balancing the placement of windows to deliver natural light as far into a built structure accomplishes one of the primary principles of contemporary design: serve a utilitarian purpose, not a decorative one.

2. Promote indoor air quality: Proper ventilation for a home goes beyond opening a window or two. Stacked ventilation, for example, utilizes roof windows in combination with wall windows, creating updrafts that funnel warm air outdoors and away from living areas. Interior window openings can help channel fresh air to a home’s more remote locations.

3. Minimize ornamentation to maximize impact: With the right positioning, spectacular scenery can become the focus of a room, even the focus of a home. Whether as a huge picture window or a perfectly aligned group of smaller windows, this reinforces a home’s connection to its surroundings and is commonly referred to as managing the view.

4. Erase the divide between interior and exterior: Walls of windows or patio doors can help connect the interior of a home with the immediate surroundings. Thresholds are minimized, rooflines blend into tree lines, and outdoor spaces become your expanded living space.

5. Knowing which windows match a contemporary style is key to achieving that contemporary look.  To that end, this free site connects home styles and the proper windows based on architectural need. 

Rather than dictating how you live, a contemporary home’s open spaces and clean lines accept the life you want to live, growing and changing with you. This evolving definition is what helps keep contemporary design contemporary, and relevant for any lifestyle.

Find your Local Window Dealer in our Homeowners Resource Guide >>

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