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Windows play a crucial role in architectural design, serving three fundamental functions: providing daylighting, facilitating visual connections, and contributing to a building’s distinctive character. This guidance outlines key design objectives for windows, ensuring they activate the street, maintain appearance in alignment with the building’s narrative, uphold proportion and positioning informed by design, and address environmental considerations effectively.

Applicants should demonstrate how their scheme meets the following design objectives.

Design Objectives

1. Activation on the street: Building frontages should have windows facing public spaces.

2. Appearance:

   All parts of the window (sills, mullions, muntins, cheeks etc) must reflect the building’s design narrative, and contribute to the distinctive identity of the building within the street.

   Window appearance including the materials, depth, colour, shape, and detailing need to be high quality and well related to the overall design concept and architectural language.

   Windows which need to be smaller (e.g. to minimise heat loss) can appear un generous. Using architectural features such as textured panels can help windows appear larger.

3. Proportion and positioning: The size and proportion, placement and grouping of windows should be informed by the design narrative.

4. Environmental: The design and orientation of windows should respond to the environmental factors to mange solar gain and overheating and provide adequate lighting.

Activation on the street

Building frontages should have windows facing public spaces.

Guidance:

Placing windows onto street frontages helps to increase the presession of safety by allowing for natural surveillance over public spaces and discouraging anti-social behaviour.

Windowless elevations, exposed under croft car and cycle parking should be avoided.

Corners of streets should avoid having a blank frontage. Visual links should be created to open/public spaces.

Appearance

All parts of the window (sills, mullions, muntins, cheeks etc) must reflect the building’s design narrative, and contribute to the distinctive identity of the building within the street.

Window appearance including the materials, depth, colour, shape, and detailing need to be high quality and well related to the overall design concept and architectural language.

Windows which need to be smaller (e.g. to minimise heat loss) can appear un generous. Using architectural features such as textured panels can help windows appear larger.

Articulated Openings

Oriel Windows

Feature Windows

Proportion and positioning

The size and proportion, placement and grouping of windows should be informed by the design narrative.

Guidance:

Windows should be in keeping and informed by the architectural language and design narrative of the building. Other fenestration of the building (dormers, door, balconies etc) need to be considered.

Features around the window to group, frame, accentuate.

Environmental

The design and orientation of windows should respond to the environmental factors to mange solar gain and overheating and provide adequate lighting.

Guidance:

• Avoid fixed (unopenable) windows, fenestration should be designed to maximise openable areas.

• Minimise heat loss and provide sufficient solar heat gain by considering the proportions and the orientations of the windows. North facing elevations shuld have smaller windows, whilst south facing should have larger windows.

• The use of shading can significantly reduce the risk of overheating. Using features such as brise soleil, stacked balconies, deep reveals, or moveable shading including shutters, louvers or internal curtains, blinds (which should not be relied on exclusively.