窗户危机 The window in crisis

窗口——人类生命的迹象,对过路人眨眼睛。它是建筑物的眼睛,让人凝视外面的世界而不被发觉。它迎接着阳光,照亮这一切。它是新鲜空气的来源,有时也是交流的话和气味的地方……同时也打破了墙体的结构连续性,从而出现易损性、热敏性、渗漏性。作为建筑中的一个基本元素,窗口在本书的介绍中占据了一席之地。眼睛、嘴巴、鼻子和耳朵,这不仅是建筑外观的决定性特征,也是让居住者看到、听到和感觉到他们所在位置的媒介。

The window – sign of human life, wink to the passerby, eye of the building allowing one to gaze at the outside world without being seen, welcomer of the daylight and the sun’s ray highlighting surfaces and objects, source of fresh air and sometimes place of exchange of words and smells … but also a break in the wall’s structural continuity, and thus place of vulnerability, fragility, thermal sensitivity, leakage. A basic element in architecture, the window happily takes its place in the introduction to this book. Eye, mouth, nose and ear concurrently it is not only a determining feature in the building’s appearance, but also the intermediary which allows the occupants of a building to see, hear and feel the place of which they are part.

窗户的形状和尺寸有它们的历史。在原始的小屋中,一个最小的开口作为入口,朝向外部世界的视野、光线和通风的来源。有时还会增加一两个不太起眼的开口。很久以后,出现了玻璃窗,使用者可以在打开和关闭之间进行选择,而不必陷入黑暗。迄今为止,窗户的形式在一定程度上依赖于控制室内照明和温度的建筑技术。窗户靠近天花板时的照明效率是靠近地面时的几倍。因此,最经济的窗户将安置在靠近天花板的位置,如果它不需要考虑到视野和空间衔接。

The forms and dimensions of windows have their history. In the primitive hut, one minimal opening served as entrance, view, towards the outside world, source of light and of ventilation. One or two more modest openings were sometimes added. Much later came the glazed window which offers the user the choice between opening and closing it without having to be plunged into darkness. Hitherto the form of windows has been to a certain extent dependent on building techniques for controlling interior lighting and temperature. The lighting efficiency of a window is several times greater when it is near the ceiling than when it is near the ground. Thus the most economical window would be positioned near the ceiling, if it did not also have to take into account view and spatial articulation.

因此,窗户包含了三种设计功能:光线、视野和室内外的衔接。宗教和内向的建筑主要是为了采光而设计的。自文艺复兴以来,一些建筑师通过在窗户上方提供照明的开口或眼孔,利用了将光的设计与视线的设计分离的潜力。插入砖墙的最常见的传统窗户仍然是“垂直窗户”,它将三种设计功能结合在一个单一的建筑元素和最小的楣板上。这是直到二十世纪的典型窗口。

The window therefore encompasses three design functions: that of light, that of view and that of articulation between interior and exterior. Religious and introverted buildings are mainly designed for light. Since the Renaissance several architects have exploited the potential of isolating the design for light from that for view by providing openings or oculi for lighting above the windows which provide the view. The most common traditional window inserted into the masonry wall is still the ‘vertical window’, which combines the three design functions in a single architectural element with a minimal lintel. This was the archetypal window up until the twentieth century.

数千年的传统做法现在受到了新的建筑方法的挑战:钢和钢筋混凝土引入了框架结构,将承重墙变成了非承重膜。垂直窗口已经失去了它与建筑经济的关系,因此被减少到许多可能性中的一种。建筑不再受限于有限的建造技术。事实上,自由立面、玻璃幕墙、垂直细窗、观景窗、角窗、玻璃阳台、幕墙和其他设备为空间和光线的建模提供了许多新的解决方案。

Thousands of years of traditional practice have now been challenged by new building methods: steel and reinforced concrete have introduced frame construction, which has transformed the bearing wall into a nonbearing membrane. Artificial lighting has done away with the limitations of natural lighting. The vertical window has lost its relationship with the economy of construction and thus been reduced to just one among a number of possibilities. Architecture is no longer guided by the imperatives of limited techniques of construction. Indeed free façades, glazed bays, vertical slots, picture windows, corner windows, glazed verandas, curtain walls and other devices offer many new solutions for modelling space and light.