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These All-Glass Houses are Sweet... If They're Real

By Rain Noe - July 25, 2012

in Materials | Architecture

As revolutionary as it was for the time, Philip Johnson's Glass House could not be made entirely from glass; the technology simply didn't exist in 1949. But as we saw with Apple's Fifth Avenue cube and their insane staircase in SoHo, times have changed for glass.

Speaking of which, Italian architecture firm SantambrogioMilano appears to have created not one, but two houses made entirely from glass.

Caveat: I say "appears to have created" because the firm's website provides no details about the houses themselves, and indeed does not distinguish whether they are actual standing structures or merely concepts. I'm leaning towards the latter, primarly because photos of the house sited near the coastline (below) look suspiciously render-ey. What do you think?

If the houses are not real, hopefully some corporate patron of architecture will come along and use their deep pockets to make them a reality. Candidate number one: Whomever the parent company of Windex is.

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Brian

12 years ago

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What would the energy bill be for a place like that? I can't imagine it'd be cheap to heat or cool that.
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Pancho

12 years ago

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Have you read "We", the dystopian novel by Yevgeny Zamyatin?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_%28novel%29

People lived in glass houses ;)
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Jon

12 years ago

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I agree with Ken. The perspective lines are what killed the renderings for me. Too bad, it is a cool concept.
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Ken J

12 years ago

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The bed gives it away? Not the scale or perspective?!?!

The house for ants in the woods? Cummon really!? 0dontthrowstones02.jpg shows the house as being 2 ft tall.

The leaning house sinking into the ocean!?
Perspective lines, if they were assumed to be from level surfaces, are supposed to converge on the horizon. These converge into the sea.
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Dan Matarazzo

12 years ago

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They are definitely just concepts. The rendering is spectacular given the complex reflections (refractions?), but the bedd gives it away. You'll notice that the bed spread and pillow cover fabric folds are exactly the same between the two different houses. Other than that these are pretty fantastic.
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Devin LaDawri

12 years ago

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Is it wrong that the first thing that sprang to mind was "Windex"?.....
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Andrew

12 years ago

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Renderings. Identical bed (and wrinkles) in both houses.

Glass houses are great for the voyeur/exhibitionist crowd, but real people have dirty laundry and skeletons to store.
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dave

12 years ago

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renders.
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