Floor-to-ceiling windows - Why floor-to-ceiling windows? Advantages and disadvantages?

In the past, people spoke of their "own four walls," today one would have to say: "my own four / six / eight windows" – depending on how many floor-to-ceiling and almost ceiling-high windows pierce and interrupt the four walls. Floor-to-ceiling windows have become a matter of course rather than a status symbol; they are the contrast to the windowsill and flowerpot world that new-build residents want to leave behind. You can tilt floor-to-ceiling windows, even open them if they have fall protection, but: can you love them?

Indeed, as a floor plan buyer, your heart opens when you see the light-flooded rooms and almost weightless walls in the graphic simulations of the real estate agent. Glass down to the floor—that was otherwise only known from skyscraper scenes in big movies and extravagant museum buildings. Even the prospect of floor-to-ceiling windows gives you the feeling that you can be a more open, lighter, brighter person.

In public perception, these windows convey something solemn, pathetic, visionary. When the Handelsblatt portrays the leading conservative talk show personality Hans-Olaf Henkel, one learns in the first paragraph that the sprightly AfD official looks through floor-to-ceiling windows from his penthouse in Berlin-Mitte onto "his goal," the government district. The reverse perspective is taken by Gerhard Schröder in his book Entscheidungen: Mein Leben in der Politik: The former chancellor writes about the moment after Oskar Lafontaine’s resignation in 1999. "When Joschka was out again and Heye had also said goodbye, I stood as always, when I had to consider a confusing situation, at the floor-to-ceiling window through which a late sun sent its last rays. Early spring and a light early green in the park of the Chancellery."

However, most viewers who stand at floor-to-ceiling windows in a confusing situation will rather see moribund turf or a chaos of Bobby cars, children’s bikes, kickboards, skateboards, unicycles, and rubber boots: spring in a new housing estate in Munich-Oberföhring, Hamburg-Ottensen, or Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg. Because precisely where homes for families are being built, floor-to-ceiling windows are now a design standard, and Germany’s best-selling house "Flair 113" also has floor-to-ceiling windows under the pitched roof.

The trigger was probably the triumph of underfloor heating: since new buildings are heated from below, there is no longer a need for radiators in their traditional place under the window, and the window can extend to the floor. This gives residents more light, and the facades appear less bulky and forbidding.

Planning is one thing, but resident reality is another. Or in the words of Anne Zuber, editor-in-chief of the magazine Häuser: "Reality is the moment when you glance into the fridge on the go, stuff two slices of salami into your mouth, and are watched by neighbors from three different directions." Zuber’s appeal to future architects and planners: "Don’t forget the salami zones."

Initially, however, the pleated blind suppliers rejoice, because these roller-like folding blinds, which can be moved up and down within the window frame, are ideal to turn floor-to-ceiling windows back into ones through which you cannot look down to the resident’s hips. However, these windows then look like strictly skirted governesses among the wall holes. Others make do with matte adhesive film, which inevitably raises the question: folks, why floor-to-ceiling windows if you cover them up?

A walk through the new development shows that residents simply block some of the floor-to-ceiling windows over time. It looks odd because the backs of furniture are no facade decoration. But what can you do if the children’s room has a wall with a door, a wall with a closet, and two walls with floor-to-ceiling windows? Those who live with floor-to-ceiling windows quickly realize that they demand things from you that you cannot afford. The writer Anke Stelling has just written an illuminating novel about the identity crisis of a mother in Prenzlauer Berg. Her book is actually titled Bodentiefe Fenster. In it, the narrator reflects that the new building "looks from outside exactly as one wants it nowadays. But the floor-to-ceiling windows, to be honest, make furnishing difficult, at least if you didn’t already know in the floor plan creation who should sleep where and with how many people and pieces of furniture you were moving in. The windows demand a coherent overall concept."

Every move, especially if you build yourself, seems like a new start, like the opportunity to finally have this "coherent overall concept," the hope to finally control your own life. But once inside, the windows bring you back down to earth, literally to the ground they reach. Yes, architects praise the exchange between private and public space in the residential complex; the design furniture catalog suggests that minimalist living is possible in everyday life, but in the end, the floor-to-ceiling windows show you: everything is always improvisation, nothing is coherent.

My daughter is turning eight; she was just born when we moved into the new building. She knows only floor-to-ceiling windows. She has three of them in her room. Asked before her birthday what she wished for, she said: "A windowsill." Why that? "Where you can sit comfortably. Or lean on. With a cushion or something. Or put something on." And what? "A flowerpot."

Photo: Till Raether, Source: Schlafzimmer-Süddeutsche

I really had to smile ... sofas, desks, etc.

I am very glad that we only have floor-to-ceiling elements where you can actually go outside. In the living room – so to speak on the 1st floor – we decided against it after much back and forth, even though we liked the exterior view much better and there are no pieces of furniture in front of the windows. Now we’re happy to be able to lie on the couch without being seen from outside. It is still absolutely bright and friendly. The children’s rooms also work wonderfully without them. Two floor-to-ceiling windows in the staircase were also replaced with normal windows, simply to create a certain privacy. For us at least, it was the absolutely right decision. When I see the floor plan ideas here, it feels like 90% are equipped with the tumor. Already in the draft, the first pieces of furniture appear in front of the oh-so-great floor-to-ceiling windows. Sometimes I really wonder. I think it’s nice too, but thinking a bit about the furnishings really can’t be that hard... The other day, I was standing in a new build (!), where even the kitchen half-island was built against the floor-to-ceiling fixed element. There was only 5-10 cm of space in between, now used for small stuff like a dustpan and brush and magazines. In order to not see the eyesore from outside so much, the glass was covered with film, as described in the article. Seriously?!

I don't understand the excitement... so there are just some pieces of furniture in front, so what?

There is also this old thing that almost everyone has forgotten. It's called curtains. You put them in front of glass (which is in the wall) regardless of how big the glass is and suddenly this glass becomes opaque from the outside.

From the inside, however, you can look out wonderfully. In the evening, the roller shutters go down.

In front of 3 of my 4 floor-to-ceiling windows on the ground floor, there is also a sofa, intentionally. So far, there have been no complaints or objections. Even during the planning phase, it was clear that the sofa would go there and it never occurred to us that this could be wrong or that someone would be bothered by it.

I also had to smile a lot. We will have 6 floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room, 4 of which can be opened to go into the garden. We are planning to put our pool table there, and then I don’t care if the neighbors can see that.

Here, probably only someone likes to talk and tries to explain the world to others