Out of the dark, into the light
We all love sunlight – especially in the darker months of the year, when it becomes a rare commodity. Intelligent building solutions enable home owners to radically increase the amount of daylight that shines into their homes. This manor house on the edge of the Ruhr area in western Germany provides impressive evidence of this principle.
The days are getting shorter, the nights colder – time to wrap up warm and get cosy with a warm mug of cocoa in the living room. But even in the darker months of the year, a view of the countryside has its appeal. That was the case in this converted 1920s manor with its inviting glass front – the view of the park-like grounds alone is stunning.
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The house has been in the family for years and undergone several renovations during that time – as you can see from the mixture of different styles that make up the architecture. With their 60-square-metre extension, the current owners have really put the icing on the cake. The new living and dining area on the ground floor stretches over a width of ten metres – an imposing front that, thanks to its Solarlux bi-folding door, can be opened across almost its entire width in the blink of an eye for a panoramic view of the park. This addition lends the otherwise solid construction a sense of airiness and ensures that the indoor space gets plenty of daylight.
The desire to be able to open up the room completely along one side also presented the architects of the time with a challenge in terms of energy conservation – after all, thermal insulation was essential for a living space like this. The bi-folding door was the perfect building component for this situation, thanks to its outstanding insulation properties and the ease with which it can be opened. And at only 80 mm deep and with its slender profiles, it also guarantees a high level of transparency when closed, making the space pleasant to live in even during the darker months of the year.