Framing the View – Installing the Cantifix Skyframe Glazed Windows

As mentioned in a previous post, the big glazed windows at the rear, three statement glazed windows and a big glazed skylight were due to be installed later. They were all installed in the last week.

When we wrote the brief for Dianthus, a couple of things were important to us framing the view and connecting the outside to the inside. We specifically focussed a lot of the more contemporary design on the rear of the property to ensure we didn’t disrupt the village design statement and vernacular. We also have an interest in presenting some art and craft themes internally and externally. For example, cladding, built in benches and green roof.

Rob Jackson our architect and us have been inspired by the likes of Frank Lloyd Wright Organic home designs where nature and architecture merge seamlessly. Perhaps, Frank Lloyds Wrights most famous masterpiece in terms of organic architecture is Fallingwater House which uses an organic form and water features to blend well with the environment and make a design statement early in the 20th Century.

Another inspiration for our pavilion is Farnsworth House, a somewhat eccentric design in the 50s where glass and vertical steel beams was used to support a slender framework of the house to create the ultimate universal space.

Designed by Mies van Der Roche for Dr Edith Farnsworth, this unique design at the time has inspired and influenced the modern kitchen diner living space since then. A building that basically hoovers above the meadow upon which it sits on a flood plain is way ahead of its time and an inspiration to the design of Dianthus. Particularly, the pavilion.

If you look at most extensions or new builds that you see that aren’t the standard match box build, they’ve taken inspiration from statement glass to the rear with a patio to create inside outside living.

We looked at a number of glass window options and really liked what we saw with the Cantifix Skyframe triple glaze glass. They’re pricy but we’ve already had a fair bit of experience of what bad patio glazed windows look like, practical living with them and the cost of that downstream.

Framing the view was very important given we were going to focus the energy and use of the space on the rear particularly, the landscape which we treasure. Besides the energy savings of triple glaze, having a frameless view was important.

Therefore, when the Skyframe glazed windows to the patio and the Juliet balcony was installed last week, we were blown away by how much the floor to ceiling glass will connect the outside to the inside.

Here are some photos and videos from the installation. Enjoy. The rooflight is over 400 kilograms and it took an amazing Tele handler with long arms to install. The machine they used for installing the glazed windows looks like a spider but with 4 legs and sticky fingers!