The Windows Have It

The Pine Plains, New York, home of Elise and Arnold Goodman boasts 48 windows, the largest of which measures 8'6'' by 7'6''. As architect Preston Scott Cohen explains, the "free facade makes it impossible to identify how many levels there are, or even to tell the difference between a door and a window." From without, the windows reveal dramatic glimpses of the 18th-century barn farm and new steel structure that support the house. From within, says Elise, "Each season, each time of day, offers a different view of the world. It's spectacular."

Architect Lorcan O’Herlihy created a residence for himself and his wife, Cornelia, in Venice, California.

The screen shifts between being opaque and semitransparent.

Keisha Martin and her cousin, Mickeda, chat underneath the house’s crowning glory, the oculus, which allows light to spill onto each floor of the house.

Los Angeles–based graphic designer Chris Loomis created a trio of window decals for the house’s three bathrooms. Grunbaum went with a camouflage pattern for privacy in the master bathroom, which has a wall of floor-to-ceiling glass that looks onto an adjacent patio. “Because we’re sort of in the trees, I wanted to keep the plant theme going,” he says. laloomis.com

In the tiny town of Auvilliers, France, architect Jean-Baptiste Barache designed an elegant cedar-shingled home with an A-frame construction.

Raymond takes a break on the master bedroom’s interior balcony, which is cantilevered over the dining area.

Like most Northern California homes built in the 1960s, the Burnett residence originally acted like a sieve, letting air and heat easily pass through its uninsulated walls and single-pane windows. The design team replaced all of the windows with double-pane glass, which works wonders to hold in the heat.

Only the rear of the house suggests the building’s earlier incarnation as a 1960s bungalow, and even here the original brickwork is obscured by wood cladding.