Corner glazing
Is corner glazing beyond your budget? Step in Allan Corfield, who looks at cost-effective ways of including this striking feature in your home
Adual aspect view is both a boon and a challenge when considering how to make the best of a site. If you have such a view, then integrating corner glazing in your project may add huge value.this recently completed contemporary home in Edinburgh is a case in point. Sitting on a sloping site with accommodation split over three floors, it has elevated views across the city’s skyline.the selfbuilders behind this project were keen from the outset to capture as much of this view as possible from as many rooms as they could.they also wanted to create double-height volumes within their home, which would help to link spaces vertically.this clear design brief helped in creating a striking pair of corner windows — one of them spanning two floors to create a breathtaking double-height feature.
A cost-effective route to corner glazing
There are two ways to create a feature like this.the first is the expensive way, which uses two glazing units glued together. This creates an uninterrupted, seamless glass connection, with no visible structure.this option gives the most impact, however it will be four or five times as expensive once the added cost of specialist glass and hidden cantilevered steelwork required to hold the feature in place, is factored in.
On this project we chose the second option, which is far more cost-effective and still creates wow factor. Standard structure and windows are used, rather than bespoke glazing and hidden structure, which saves a huge amount of money! As you can see from the on-site photo (below), a large structural (loadbearing) member spans the doubleheight space. In this instance, the structural engineer specified a timber cripple stud (see the jargon buster over the page) rather than a steel post.this is made up of four structural grade timbers, each 195x45mm, fixed together to act as one post. This was beneficial as it helped with insulation and reduced the potential for coldbridges around the window.
Triple-glazed Aluclad timber windows by Rationel were fitted directly into the structure. On the double-height feature, two additional windows were stacked on top of the lower windows. These were linked together using steel flitch plates discretely fixed between the frames.
ABOVE
Corner glazing in a double-height space makes for a bold design statement.