Through the Opening: A Story of Windows in Architecture

We often describe windows as elements: openings, frames, glazing ratios, thermal values. Yet, the first thing you register when you enter a space is not a U-value, it is a feeling. You sense the quality of light. You notice whether the room invites you outward or protects you from being seen. You read rhythm in the wall: repetition, pause, the quiet tension between solid and void.

This is why windows matter beyond performance. They are the interface between a building and its world. They translate climate into comfort, culture into pattern, and structure into emotion. Across geographies and eras, the same question keeps returning: how do we let the outside in without losing ourselves? Through the opening, architecture becomes personal.

The sun does not realize how wonderful it is until after a room is made. ~ Louis Khan

Windows as a Design Language: Geometry, Rhythm, Proportion

A window reads before it is understood. A circle softens. A tall vertical slot elevates. A grid can feel calm and rational — or strict and unforgiving — depending on scale and spacing. Repeat an opening and you create tempo; interrupt it and you create emphasis. Design begins not with glass, but with decisions.

Historically, window systems followed clear geometric logic: a base module, a ratio, a repeated profile. These rules are not restrictive; they are clarifying. They allow a façade to speak as one body rather than a collection of holes. Even today, proportion carries meaning. Generosity, discipline, intimacy, monumentality — all can be felt through the size of an opening relative to the wall that holds it.

Baghdad Shanasheel: projecting windows that negotiate shade, privacy, and street life.

Function That Becomes Poetry: Mashrabiya, Shanasheel, and Jharokha

The earliest windows were not about views; they were about survival. They admitted air, released heat, controlled glare, filtered dust, and allowed observation without exposure.

In Middle Eastern architecture, the mashrabiya evolved into a refined environmental device: a three-dimensional screen that filters light, encourages air movement, and preserves privacy. Its beauty is not ornament applied to function; the pattern is the function. As sunlight passes through, interiors receive a moving tapestry — a daily reminder that climate can be designed, not endured.

The shanasheel of Baghdad and the jharokha of South Asian havelis reveal another lesson: projection creates depth. A bay is a micro-architecture — a place to sit, to observe, to shade the wall behind. Windows become inhabitable, turning the threshold into a room within a room.

Jharokha-like window bays in a Rajasthan haveli: depth and shadow turn the facade into a lived edge.

The Emotional Window: What Openings Do to a Room (And to Us)

Change only the windows in two identical plans and you will feel you entered two different buildings. Openings can compress space or release it, draw the eye to the horizon or turn attention inward. They can shelter, expose, dramatize, quieten, or sacralize.

Stained glass is the most explicit expression of the window as emotion. It does not merely light an interior; it colours time itself, softening perception and dissolving the boundary between structure and atmosphere — as experienced in Sainte-Chapelle. The same principle operates in contemporary minimalism: when an opening is reduced to a single, precise cut, light becomes the main event. The room becomes a device for seeing.

Stained glass as atmosphere: windows as narrative, not only illumination (Sainte-Chapelle, Paris - France).

A Short History of Openings: From Holes in Walls to Framed Worlds

As technology evolves, windows evolve with it. Thick walls with small punctures give way to larger openings as structural systems improve. Arches and buttresses transfer loads so glass can grow. Steel and reinforced concrete extend the logic further, and the modern curtain wall dissolves the boundary almost entirely. The question shifts from can we open the wall to how much should we.

One enduring strategy across eras is the clerestory. Placed high, it washes a space with daylight while protecting privacy and preserving the lived edge of the wall. It is both pragmatic and cinematic — lifting ceilings, stretching shadows, and lending quiet dignity. Sometimes the best window is the one that does not ask to be looked through.

Clerestory strategy: high openings that light the volume while protecting the lived edge.

WiEdesign Approach: Designing Openings as Experience

At WiEdesign, windows are never an afterthought. They are part of the spatial narrative. We begin by asking what the opening should do for the person inside. Calm daylight or dramatic contrast? A framed landmark or a softened horizon? Retreat or connection?

From there, geometry follows — and the technical system supports the story. We pay particular attention to depth. A window is not a line; it is a thickness you cross with your eyes. Reveals, frames, screens, shutters, and seating niches all change how an opening is perceived and inhabited. When a window has depth, it becomes a pause — a place where the body can linger. That is where architecture moves from image to experience.

In all my works, light is an important controlling factor. ~ Tadao Ando

A single cut can hold an entire atmosphere: light as the primary material in the Church of the Light designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando. (photo: © Courtesy of Bergmann, Wikimedia Commons)

Openings are Decisions You can Feel

A well-designed window is an elegant negotiation. It balances climate with comfort, exposure with privacy, and structure with beauty. It gives a building its face — and gives the interior its mood.

If you are designing a home, a workplace, or a hospitality project, start with the opening. Decide what the light should do, what the view should mean, and what the room should protect. When those choices are clear, the window will not only work. It will belong.