Adding high light; set high in the wall, clerestory windows bring daylight deep into a house … without losing privacy

Sunset, Jan, 1991

Some windows are specialists. When normal eye-level windows won't work due to privacy considerations or lack of wall space or views, consider the clerestory. Set high in the wall, clerestory windows enhance a room's feeling of spaciousness by bringing daylight deep into the house. They allow light and shadow to play on adjacent walls and floors in an infinite range of patterns, changing a room's character throughout the day. As with all glass windows, there is some heat transfer through clerestories, but the ones featured on these pages are double-glazed, and new roofs got extra insulation. Edited views, well-used wall space In the kitchen at left, the original windows, which looked out on a garage and neighboring apartments, did little to enhance the room. They also hogged potential cabinet space. The San Francisco firm of Swatt Architects used clerestories and a new skylight to create an efficient, streamlined, light-filled kitchen. Today, the old windows are gone, and a new row of 12-inch-square panes creates a "light cornice," wrapping the corner just below the ceiling. The high windows not only eliminate unwanted views, but also allow room for new cabinets and an expanded counter. Atrium becomes light chimney Transforming a courtyard into an interior room while preserving daylight was the potentially contradictory challenge facing San Francisco architect Michael Connell in the remodel at right. Like a square doughnut, the compact row house had a tiny, open-air, 8- by 12-foot light court at the center between the living room and the kitchen. According to homeowner Judy Carlino, it was too small to be useful as an outdoor space, it cramped the dining room and the entry hall, and it leaked into the garage below. Connell roofed the atrium and removed side walls to create a dining and entry area opening to the living room on one

Continued on age 62) side and the kitchen on the other. The new roof rises 6 feet higher than the house's ceiling, allowing for clerestory windows and creating a light chimney that brings daylight deep into the heart of the house. Ranch house raises flap for light Like a broad flap, a rectangular section of roof rises from the ranch-style house at left, aiming a 41-inch-tall band of windows toward the northern skies. The new 13- by 17-foot raised section is centered above the living room, which used to have an 8-foot-high ceiling and only one source of daylight-doors opening onto a patio. On the window side, the roof rises 6 feet above the old ceiling, which now wraps the room to form a soffit. Metal poles at the corners support beams that ring the opening. The rectangular shape of the opening repeats in the new tiled floor. The tiles within the rectangle lie at a 45' angle to the perimeter tiles. To further emphasize the shape, the angled tiles were gently sandblasted, which subtly changed the color and texture of the glazed surface, making it seem like a tile rug. The remodel is by Mahtash Rahbar and Scott Strumwasser of Enclosures, Los Angeles, with Roche Bobois for interiors. New entry lights interior, too Creating more problems than it solved, an earlier addition to the house at left had buried the entry door behind a carport, eliminated several important windows, and created a hodgepodge of roof angles. Today, a jutting 8- by 30-foot entry addition eases the transition from outdoors to inside, lights the house's interior, and improves the streetside appearance. To light the entry, Aspen architect Steve Conger placed eight 3-foot-square windows just below the roof line. The clerestory windows also impart a dash of modernist flair to the boxy addition. Except in the morning, when sunlight streams through the east-facing French doors and windows, indirect north light bounces off the white walls and ceiling, suffusing the entry with reflected light. Because six of the windows face north, there was no need to shade them from the summer sun.