Tucson Clerestory Windows
Photo From 5581 N. Paseo Pescado
Frank Lloyd Wright had a “Thing” for Tucson. Tucson also loved his as well, more to the point they loved some of his architectural design elements and incorporated them into the housing landscape that makes up Tucson today.One of those design elements is the clerestory window.
This quote from: Counter Punch: Usonian Utopias Frank Lloyd Wright Working Class Housing and the FBI,
Even so what Wright produced was little short of a revolution in American architecture: a beautiful structure, efficiently designed to sit on an odd (and cheap) lot, at a price affordable for lower income families. But the Jacobs House, and the dozens of Usonian designs that would follow, did more than that. It was truly one of the first environmentally-conscious designs, utilizing passive solar heating, natural cooling and lighting with his signature clerestory windows, native materials, radiant floor heating, and L-shaped floorplan that anchored the house around a garden terrace.
Clerestory windows are set high in the wall, they enhance a room’s feeling of spaciousness by bringing daylight deep into the house. They allow light and shadow to play on adjacent walls and floors in an infinite range of patterns, changing a room’s character throughout the day.
Clerestory windows are very popular in Tucson and when attention is paid to the location of the sun as it enters the house clerestory windows add a depth and richness to a room that no other form of lighting can.
There are many homes in Tucson that take advantage of Clerestory windows. They are often used in public buildings as well.
One of the more prominent buildings in Oro Valley is the Oro Valley Library where clerestory windows are used to provide a large amount of ambient light for reading. The buildings windows are facing Northwest so direct sunlight never enters the windows. Instead the light fills the rooms with a warmth and richness perfect for a library setting.
The new materials that are used for construction of clerestory windows minimize the effects of heat being transferred through the windows to the interior of the home or building. This is especially true when positioned as mentioned above so there is little or no direct sunlight coming through the windows during the course of the day.
Tucson’s dry climate with little rain and almost no snow make clerestory windows a natural selection for many Tucson homes. If you are fortunate enough to have a Tucson home where the Catalina or Tortolita mountains are visible through the clerestory windows you can enjoy fantastic mountain views right from inside your home.
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