The new neighborhood watch: Urban glass houses

Here's looking at you

With so much glass on so many levels, occupants can see through the interior to the exterior of the house and back through to the interior of the house's other rooms.

On the top floor is a glass-box master bedroom surrounded by a terrace, which sports a sunken wood hot tub, grill and lawn chairs.

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'Storefront' look

This Seattle home -- designed by Chris Pardo, founder of Elemental Architecture -- has its main living area on the second floor to increase privacy. That floor is almost entirely encased in glass, however, making it look like a transparent box floating above the more traditional homes in a densely populated neighborhood.

Pardo used standard windows with thin supports between them to give a "storefront" look.

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Exposure

Glass houses aren't new. Two of this country's most famous examples — Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's see-through Farnsworth House in Plano, Ill., and Philip Johnson's Glass House in New Canaan, Conn. — date back to the middle of the last century. But some architects aren't as comfortable with the idea in cities.

Daniel Piechota, a partner of the San Francisco-based firm Sagan Piechota, says he uses glass in less-crowded neighborhoods but not in cities. He argues that glass is tricky enough when there's lots of space; issues include birds, flying tree limbs and light pollution, which can mar the nighttime scenery.

In cities, a glass house "doesn't seem appropriate," Piechota says. "The people inside become on display."

Every so often, the owner of the Seattle house, Grant Risdon, will look down and see a stranger waving at him. But he doesn't use blinds, even at night.

"I don't feel exposed. I don't worry about it," he says. "We have nothing to hide."

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Seattle kitchen

Advancements in reflective glass allow architects to construct glass walls that maximize the view out and minimize the view in.

But that doesn't always cheap. Risdon's house cost about $200 a square foot to build.

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Memphis box

Barry Alan Yoakum, a partner at architecture firm Archimania, built this 2,600-square-foot, two-bedroom house that he designed in a dense Memphis, Tenn., neighborhood. It has a white brick base and an elevated glass box angled toward the Mississippi River.

After he moved in, in 2008, he found himself the subject of interest of a teenager with a telescope across the street. Then he noticed tour buses, en route to somewhere else, would frequently stop in front of his house, discharging camera-wielding occupants who wanted to photograph his unusual house. The crews of the tugboats and barges on the river often use binoculars to peer into his bedroom.

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Sheer but secure

Yoakum's house is five minutes from his office. he can walk to restaurants, movies and grocery stores — and can gaze out from bed to see flocks of birds swooping up the river and the moon tracing its way across the sky.

Yoakum says that he doesn't worry about security because when the alarm system goes on, so do all the lights, making it easy to see a thief from anywhere inside or outside the house.

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Wedged-in windows

This five-bedroom house with an all-glass front on three of its four stories is in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood. Because the lot was narrow — 24 feet wide by 119 feet deep — and between other houses, the only way to get a lot of light was to open both ends with lots of glass, says architect John McCarthy of Osterhaus McCarthy, which designed the house.

To keep such a modern, glassy house from sticking out too much, the architects used materials and colors for the first-floor brick facade that mimic neighboring houses. Big trees in front of the house act as natural heaters and coolers, with the leaves blocking the sun in the summer and the bare branches letting it in during the winter.

The "backyards" are landscaped terraces, one of which is on the flat roof, next to an all-glass top floor with city views.

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Let there be light

A skylight in the middle and an open stairwell let even more light inside. Completed in 2011, the house has a two-story living room and a dining room that faces the street with an all-glass front.

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Double lot

In the heart of the historic Little Italy neighborhood in Cleveland, Stephen J. Bucchieri of Bucchieri Architects designed this townhouse. It sits among two- and three-story, single-family residences on deep, narrow city lots.

The lot on which this new house sits used to contain two homes.

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Privacy first

Maintaining privacy was Bucchieri's priority in the design. He accomplished this by including an enclosed courtyard between the front and back of the house.

The architect also sought to offset what he calls the "visual noise of the surroundings" by making the exterior monolithic.

The house is four stories and 3,800 square feet. It has three bedrooms and a roof terrace.

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Panel House

Architect David Hertz, of the Studio of Environmental Architecture in Venice, Calif., used reflective glass to design what he calls the Panel House. It is a three-story, four-bedroom, 3,600-square-foot glass house on a small lot next to the boardwalk in Venice, in the heart of a nonstop pedestrian parade.

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Hide and seek

The front of the house, which faces the ocean, lets owner Thomas Ennis look out but does not let passers-by see inside.

"It's about not being disconnected from the outside world — knowing what the weather's like without having to open a window," Hertz says.

The glass adds privacy even when the windows are open. On the first level, a gear system opens the window by lowering it into a slot below — but the glass doesn't go down all the way. It stops at three feet, just enough to make it hard to see inside.

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Yacht life on land

Ennis, an inventor of car-wash equipment, says he wanted a full view of the ocean with no obstructions. He likes the openness of the house, which took about three years to build and cost about $1.6 million.

"'It makes me feel like I'm on a yacht in St. Tropez at the dock where people are walking by," he says.

The sides of the house are made from the same material as refrigerator panels, helping to counteract the heat generated by all the sunlight entering the home.

Ennis has made some adjustments since moving in, including adding several large planter boxes in front of the windows to stop passers-by from randomly yelling at him.

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