Scandinavian architecture and the glass paradox

When we talk about glass, we talk about light. About light, transparency, connecting the inside with the outside and vice versa.

When we use glass for windows, we talk about sunlight, the joy it brings us and how it makes spaces accessible visually, which otherwise would be hidden from a stranger’s curious eye. 

When architect Carlo Volf talks about glass, he sees a modern curse that disconnects us from nature instead of bringing us closer to it.

How this and my first enthusiastic vision of Scandinavian architecture got shattered in an instant, we will discuss shortly.

When first coming to Denmark, I was fascinated by the immense use of glass in the construction of houses and the built environment. 

I arrived in Aarhus, the second-largest city in Denmark, located on the eastern shore of Jutland.

Here, everything (or at least the modern parts of the city) seemed to be made of glass.

My university, several office buildings, student dorms and all major closed spaces in the harbour area. Glass ceilings, glass floors and most importantly - glass facades that were more walls than windows, really: They often stretched from floor to ceiling, covering two, three or sometimes four floors and making the inside of the building look like a big glass mausoleum. 

When something was not made from glass, it was made from wood, giving the interior of the room a very warm and cozy atmosphere.

What I first thought of, when entering the building, was how I imagined the Google Head Office in California to be like (which I personally have never been to).

Big, open spaces, a cafeteria right in the middle, surrounded by floating stairs spiralling into the heights of the ceiling - stairs that seemed to stretch on until forever.

And windows as tall as trees.

This is exactly what came to my mind when I stepped foot into my home faculty for the very first time. This was the place where journalists were made, not where Sundar Pichai was working on the launch of Gemini 3.

I couldn’t believe it; they must’ve sent us to the wrong address. Because this place didn’t seem like some university’s ground at all (to be fair, this place was a shared space between the University and some other companies’ offices).

Fast forward, I eventually got used to the buildings and the way we were always somehow connected to the outside world, even though we spent most of our time inside (an average Dane spends around 90% percent of his or her time inside, according to Carlo Volf and recent Danish research. And even though we would sit and study indoors for most of the day, it never felt like we were trapped inside, nor did we ever lack sunlight (if there ever was sun during winter periods).

This experience led me to appreciate Scandinavian architecture, their ways to reconnect with nature and their bond with the sun.

I wanted to know more.

Why was this so common here? Obviously because they must be missing the sun a lot here. But how was this piece of architectural art possible? What needed to be done, to make this way of construction feasible? How did architects manage to use this much glass without failing in matters like insulation and ventilation?

I was fascinated. In Germany winters were cold too, heating was expensive and big windows rather unusual. I always thought it had to do with insulation that Germany couldn’t afford to install bigger windows, but somehow the Nordics had found a way to make it possible.

Seeing all of these glass structures made me wonder about the difficulties architects had to go through and even more appreciative of the revolutionary solutions Danish architects seemed to have found.

How I started my (re)search

I started researching how everyone would do: I opened the Google Search bar and I typed things like: “Scandinavian architecture glass windows”, “Danish architecture and use of glass”, “How do Danish architects manage to capture as much sunlight as possible?”, but nothing yielded any sort of interesting information. 

Better to speak: It yielded nothing, except for some furniture and design magazine articles talking about the Scandinavian “art of living” and the “Hygge” concept (you should look that up, it’s actually a nice tradition they have in the Nordics).

The articles I found were stating the obvious: Scandinavian architecture uses a lot of glass and windows because sunlight is scarce and needs to be contained at all costs.

This I already assumed before starting my research - It still left me with the thought:

What are the difficulties? What are the necessary prerequisites to make that kind of architecture happen?

Google didn’t help much.

So, I did what every good journalist would do: find my own sources.

As Danish architecture had become increasingly more popular during the 21st century, representing world renown sights in and outside of Denmark (Did you know that the Opera House in Sydney was designed by a Dane? Me neither. See more here.) and after Copenhagen was named the “World Capital of Architecture” from 2023 until 2025 (see more here), I figured, it shouldn’t be hard to find a person to talk to.

It turns out: the hardest part was not find interesting sources (there was plenty of them), the hardest part was to get someone to talk to me.

In my first attempt, I reached out to the School of Architecture in Aarhus, that was close by and was mentioned several times by my professors. They even had a department that was currently working on projects related to my topic, so I thought, I had found just the right people. I wrote emails explaining my interest to the head of department, to the head of the school, to the general email address that was stated on their website and to a professor working in a Research Lab called “Technology, Building Cultures and Habitation”: Research Lab 2 - Aarhus School of Architecture. It wasn’t exactly on glass and windows, but it definitely was a good starting point. 

I waited, confident that fellow academia would help out an ordinary journalism student.

But nothing.

I didn’t give up, it was just the first try.

So, I started to broaden my list of potential sources: I reached out to big architect houses like Perkins&Will (they helped construct a new Nykredit premise called “The Crystal” in Copenhagen, an impressive office building with a multi-faceted glass façade, see more here), to the Danish architecture Centre and to the Design Museum in Copenhagen. When they didn’t answer within a day or two, I started calling them. They told me I had to wait; they already forwarded my request to the person in charge.

Now I started to get nervous.

But I wasn’t giving up; I knew there was a story worth fighting for.

I just didn’t know then, that, the story I was about to encounter, would be that big of a turning point.

When I realised my emails didn’t get me anywhere, I started planning my field research: I would just show up at the different institutions I had emailed before and start asking questions directly, until someone was willing to devote their time to me.

First, I would start with the School of Architecture close by, then I would start planning weekend trips to Copenhagen.

Then, finally, an email arrived.

It was from one of the professors at the Architecture School, she must’ve sensed my desperation:

Dear Rebecca,

Thank you very much for reaching out, it sound[] like you are on a path to some really interesting studies.

I recommend that you reach out to Carlo Volf, see https://www.carlovolf.dk. Carlo did his PhD on ’Light, Architecture and Health - a Method’ here at Aarhus School of Architecture in 2013 and is an expert in your chosen field of study.

Best Regards,

Marie

It sounded good, actually perfect for what I was looking for, although the year in which he was active made me stumble a bit. I was just hoping he would still be interested to work on that topic with me.

When I opened his website, I was not let down: Frankly, quite the opposite - there was multiple examples of architectural projects in and around Aarhus, incorporating lots of wood and glass, touching on the topic of environment, sustainability and lighting and most importantly: studies on the behaviour of sunlight inside a room.

I had found my person. Now came the hardest part: Getting in touch.

There was no email address on the website, only a telephone number. I didn’t like calling my sources out of nowhere, going like a bull at a gate, but this time I had no other option. I gathered all my confidence (the confidence of a 25 year old student who was about to expose herself as a naïve foreigner questioning Danish architectural traditions with no preexisting knowledge) and called.

I was just hoping he wouldn’t pick up so I could excuse my research project as failed, go back normalcy and find a new research topic for my article. 

Carlo Volf did pick up, and he was not only the nicest interviewee I had ever talked to, but also the first one to turn my expectations about my story upside down.

Carlo Volf

After a short call, we agreed on an interview via Zoom, because Carlo was currently in Copenhagen and it was the most convenient option for both of us.

After finding an appropriate day and hour, the interview was set to take place on the 9th of December at 2pm.

Carlo answered my video call with a friendly hello, and I made sure he gave me his consent to record the interview before we started.

My first question to him was obvious, like always, routinely: “Can you please introduce yourself and tell me a little bit about yourself?” 

And when he answered, immediately, I knew I had the right guy.

Carlo Volf is an architect and a senior researcher working with and assessing the environmental quality of buildings, which means analysing all environmental influences on a building at the same time: daylight, ventilation, building physics, thermal balance, energy performance, health and more.

“It’s quite a complex mix of also very dynamic factors and immaterial factors. […] Both light and air are immaterial building blocks, you cannot really measure them or make them concrete, but you can try to make some synergies between [them]. […] So, everything is connected, you can say, in a very complex way. ”, he says. 

Carlo starts giving me details, but I am new to the subject and want to understand everything in its entirety, so I take it step by step:

His research projects include the comparison between passive-controlled natural ventilation vs. mechanical ventilation, clinical studies on the effects of LED-lighting for patients with major depression, housing types and their connection to risk of depression, major studies on the effects of lighting, sun exposure, seasonality, daylight quality, window glass quality and the placement of windows based on the four cardinal directions.

Because he primarily works with hospitals and psychiatric facilities, a big part of his work relates to (mental) health issues and how the exposure or avoidance of sunlight (and other room quality factors) can severely influence peoples wellbeing.

As he states himself, he is known for always combining practice and theory and strongly believes that architecture can help patients with depression, anxiety and their sleep quality.

So now the only question left to solve for me was: How do they manage to incorporate so much glass? I was filled with joy and excitement to finally talk about crystal windows and sunlight. But the event turned out differently: “I could tell from your approach that you didn't know. 

Carlo tells me.

“Historically […] built environment was about health and avoiding illnesses; it was not about aesthetics. Then of course it became aesthetics. That's the funny part, because if you build something, make something, design something that is healthy, it always will be aesthetic. […] But if you go for something aesthetically, then you're not ... You're not always making something that is healthy. […] We overlook that built environment is about health in our Nordic, Modernistic architecture.” 

I was confused, but the more he told me about the glass paradox (how I like to call it now), the more it made sense.

The interview I was about to have with Carlo Volf was not about the Danish way of using glass and windows to enhance Scandinavian lifestyle – it was about the dark side of living in glass domes.

History of Building Law

When you investigate architecture and specifically the question of daylight in relation to built environment, one has to understand, that Denmark has a long history of building regulations. Carlo tells me that in the early days, only very simple buildings laws existed, which gradually over the years turned into building regulations.

These “Building Regulations” are legislative frameworks that constitute the requirements for the built environment and have evolved several times throughout history. They are so decisive for the question of daylight in the Danish context, that there is even studies that summarise the mentioning of daylight in the Danish Building Regulations throughout the years. 

They found that daylight in itself was never treated as a seldom topic or need (like it is nowadays) but was rather a result of more immediate human needs for fire safety, health and energy (See more here).

In Denmark the first (very loose) Building Regulations emerged in the 18th century after two great fires had struck Copenhagen. 

In this process, people started to think about the geometry of built environment and the correlation between a building’s height to the width of the road, in order to prevent spreading of fire in an emergency.

The second time Copenhagen was struck, it was the cholera outbreak of 1853 which killed about 4.800 people. 

As a result, the Building Laws of 1871 and 1889 dictated not only appropriate distance to neighbouring building plots, but also more distance between buildings in the same plot, meanwhile, it was the first time that the demand for sufficient ventilation and green spaces was included in the legal framework for the first time: 

“It all started because we got ill and then some, then the government, the state said that we have to avoid, to prevent illness. So, the building laws were about daylight and fresh air was meant as a health regime only, not for daylight itself. Daylight was not the issue. ”

On the other hand, we cannot forget that Denmark is a Nordic country where temperatures in winter reach an average low of 0.0˚C. While fresh air was very important to avoid infections, cold temperatures posed an immediate need for constant heating in winter months:

“So, saying that every room should have a window was actually quite revolutionary in these times because it would have been much more comfortable to heat up a room without a window back then.”

The early challenge was not to provide people with as much sunlight as possible - it was to find the perfect balance keeping a room warm in winter, fresh air and just enough access to daylight: “[…] back then 120 years ago you did not have artificial lighting that could sort of make it out for the winter […] It was a balance between daylight on one side and then comfort on another.”

Energy performance of built environment

Carlo Volf is hinting at the historically evolved awareness of a building’s energy performance. The energy performance of a building typically describes a building’s overall energy use comprised by different factors like the building envelope, insulation, windows, the efficiency of a building’s systems and more. 

In other words, the more energy “goes missing” (for example warm air escaping through badly insulated windows), the worse a building’s energy performance (see more here).

This constant search for a perfectly balanced environment evolved historically and was influenced by human bodily needs, technological innovations and political conflicts: In the 60s and 70s, for example, western architecture was hit with a drastic change when Arab state members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) declared oil embargos on certain countries and stopped exporting oil to those, who allied with Israel during the Yom Kippur War. This then led to a sharp rise of crude oil prices and caused to a global energy crisis in 1973.

In this process people in Denmark and most northern European countries started to drastically save energy, which resulted in an architecture style called “pinhole architecture” , because the windows during this period were small as pinholes.

On top of that artificial lighting became much more affordable and getting natural sunlight was not a priority anymore.

This period lasted until the 1990s when windows, slowly, started to become bigger again. Carlo Volf tells me that because of new, better insulation methods, lower oil prices and passive solar heating strategies (houses being passively warmed by the sun) people were able to increase the size of their windows again.

Carlo explains that this was a time when architecture was in sync with the ideals of earlier architectural periods (like the early Modernism in the 1930’s and its focus on sunlight, fresh air and nature). It was a time when architects reached an almost ideal thermal state inside closed spaces.

“But the problem today is that we have maybe solved it too well.”

Problem 01: Insulation & Ventilation

Since the 2000s the structure, material and installation of windows have improved drastically in Northern Europe and Denmark, and with it rose the focus on high insulation standards, to an extent, where infiltration and natural ventilation (through small holes or cracks) was not possible anymore. 

The thing is, we need fresh air inside residential buildings to maintain good air quality and normal humidity levels.

While the EU is trying to tackle global warming by implementing certain building standards and reforms, EU regulations have been focusing a lot on “trapping” existing heat indoors, in order to improve a building’s energy performance and reduce global warming effects. This can be done by insulating closed spaces to the maximum and installing mechanical ventilation systems to ensure fresh air flow.

These new ventilation systems are using big heat pumps to ventilate a room while “recovering” hot air. “And in the US, for example, you have fully mechanical ventilation everywhere. 

It's a curse of our time that we think that mechanical ventilation is the solution, but it's not. We don't need it.”

What engineers and EU directives did not regard was that these ventilation systems may not be the most effective to improve a building’s overall carbon footprint, because the energy they use to air out a room mechanically is higher than the energy that may be “lost” when we don’t focus too much on insulation or when a building is ventilated naturally (Carlo did research comparing heat-recovering mechanical ventilation systems with so called “NOTECH” , passively-controlled, natural ventilation systems).

In his study he found that heat-recovering mechanical ventilation systems are less efficient for a buildings overall energy performance and causes more damage to the environment than it is saving (The study was conducted comparing heating demands of two identical buildings at the same location which differed only in the ventilation method and the window types they applied. The difference in heating demands was close to 20% lower in the buildings that applied the NOTECH method, see more here).

Which brings us to another problem of having big windows:

Problem 02: No more passive heating and low transmittance of sunlight

The 2nd issue, that Carlo explains, is that back in the day, in the 90s for example, there was a period of “solar architecture” which relied on buildings that were heated passively by the sun. While facing the winter sun construction materials were made so that solar energy could trespass, warming up the building from the outside.

“[…] however, today we have moved away from that. If you look at the 2020 buildings, if you go 30 years up in time, then today's buildings are no longer passively warmed by the sun. We have now insulating glass units that avoid[] thermal heat from the sun to access the building.”

From what Carlo tells me, I understand, that nowadays, window manufacturers have overfocused on the insulation part, preventing the solar heat from escaping in winter and blocking out sunlight in summer (for example by using 3-layered thermo-windows).

While the system of these windows (trapping air between two parallel glass panels) was initially introduced as a clever way to reduce energy loss, it seems almost paradox to block out natural sunlight in order to lower a building’s energy demand.

“And that is not a good balance since we always (…) I mean always, in the history of our planet, we have always harvested the heat and the light from the sun in buildings. Buildings that do not harvest the energy from the sun is to me disregarding maybe the biggest force, natural force, creating life on this planet, the rays from the sun.”

Inspired by a more natural approach Carlo did research on how high-transmittance glass (3-layered low iron glass) can actually benefit from passive solar heating by allowing a higher transmission of sunlight through the glass. When compared to the performance of conventional 2-layered thermo-windows, the low iron glass, that Carlo implements in most of his projects, contributes to a 11% decrease in total energy consumption, because it uses solar power to heat up a room.

While there are many energy related factors that influence energy demands, we cannot say that a higher transmission of sunlight is the only reason for a decreased energy consumption (although Carlo proved that a lower transmission of sunlight is not necessarily linked with better energy performance either).

But what we can say for sure is how much of the health aspects are overlooked, when the sun is blocked out:

Problem 03: The quality of sunlight is going down

Apart from environmental benefits of the sun, daylight is also essential for people’s health and their sleep-wake rhythm (the circadian system). 

When we block out the sun, especially sunrays that are not necessarily visible to the human eye (like the UVB component, that provides us with vitamin D) and blue light, which regulates our melatonin levels, we are disturbing our natural biorhythm and risk vitamin D deficiency (Vitamin D is crucial for bone density, proper muscle function and for our immune system).

“We have done studies on the transmission of daylight, and you reduce the daylight by 20 % if you want to have 3-layered low energy windows compared to 2-layered high transmissions windows. And you also lose the UVB component, UV light from the sun, which is very healthy. But you also block this spectrum from our built environment, which is not very clever if you ask me, but they're doing it because they can save energy. So, I mean, I like your attitude, your approach when you say that we have large windows in Denmark, which I agree that we have, but if you look at the windows, the quality of the glass and the quality of the daylight coming through the windows, that has been going down since the first energy regulations in 1961. The transmission of glass has been reduced by every decade, you see a loss in transmission because of energy demands.“

If you ask yourself now why low transmission glass units were implemented in the first place, it was mostly in order to reduce heat loss during the winter and to prevent overheating in summertime and to. 

So, while big windows are still very trendy in the Nordics, they are not very useful in summer, because they heat up space quickly.

Problem 04: Active cooling and higher energy demands

So, when I ask Carlo if the bigger size and the perfected insulation of the windows could be a reason for higher energy demands, Carlo says yes:

Not only do buildings need heating in winter, but they also need cooling during the summertime. Ventilation for cooling was a natural process in the 90s and came passively through a building’s façade, whereas today, a lot more heavy machinery is installed during the construction to achieve a similar effect: 

“We're using much more building materials, making recessed ceilings, to provide tubes in steel and aluminium for ventilation, which in the 90s just came through the facades passively. ” – Which, apart from being high energy and total cost investments it is also taking a big toll on our climate.

I can clearly see now why Carlo didn’t share my excitement for big windows in the first place. Quite the opposite actually: He made me understand that big windows bring big environmental problems and that the implemented commercial solutions are not exactly environmentally friendly either.

How can we really solve the problem?

Is having smaller windows the solution then?

Yes, to some extend: Carlo says that modern architecture should more rely on a building’s orientation in regard to its cardinal directions: Which way should the façades face? North, South, East, West?

“So, if you have a facade facing south for instance, or west, [it’s] a big problem to have large glass facades because […] they get overheated, especially in the afternoon and in the evening where the building - as well as our body - is warm.”

In many cases these differences in exposure to the sun between N, S E and W is neglected and problems caused by these differences are solved mechanically “because that's what they do today”.

An example: If we are looking at a building fully made of glass, its south façade will have a different transmission of light than its northern side. Therefore, the technological properties of the windows are changed to balance out excess sunlight and make living inside the building possible. What we get is an architecturally impressive glass structure (from the outside) but a quiet unnatural place (from the inside).

“It's not even an aesthetic[] expression because such buildings can be placed anywhere, anytime and at any place in the world. Because these buildings are, how can you say, anonymous and pay no respect to their surroundings, if you have four identical facades, right? And that's poor architecture to me. So, it's very important that the architects are back in business and planning the windows and daylight. But often, unfortunately, I see that the technical parties, the engineers are taking over from the architects when it comes to daylight planning because of very tight regulations on energy.”

Due to so many aesthetic requirements and technical difficulties that come with the job in the 21st century, architects are more and more relying on their engineering colleagues, who are solving problems technologically, rather than solving them architecturally (by respecting cardinal directions for example). 

“You're looking at daylight as a technical problem today, whereas it should be considered an architectural problem.”

What happened during the 70s can easily happen again today, Carlo says. With the ongoing war in the Middle East, and Trump threatening to install heavy custom duties on several European countries (including Denmark), oil prices could rise again any moment. 

“So, we need to build more cleverly with less (…) being less dependent on technical solution[s] and much more dependent on the regional and natural architectural planning, the sun and the natural, passive forces. ”

What Carlo has been working on

Apart from researching environmental and health impacts of different window and glass types, Carlo Volf recently designed a new ventilation system using less technology and relying more on natural forces. 

The so called “NOTECH” System was tested in several Danish schools and resulted in better outcomes regarding its cost effectiveness, energy performance and a smaller carbon footprint overall when compared to the schools’ typical ventilation systems. 

While it improved environmental aspects the NOTECH design maintained the same standards for indoor air quality, temperature, CO-2 levels and relative air-humidity and, due to its outstanding impact, was honoured with the Danish design award in 2021.

Carlos NOTECH method works using solar panels that are attached to the chimney and create under pressure at that point, forcing natural airflow. In combination with special fresh air filters (made of eelgrass, which is known for being antibacterial) this system can work almost on its own (and may be even more efficient for cooling in summertime, when ventilation rates increase naturally through higher solar radiation and therefore higher thermal pressure). 

Because, as Carlo says, every detail is connected, he combined natural ventilation and passive cooling mechanisms with windows made from 2-layered low-iron high transmittance glass in order to provide students with enough healthy daylight.

What I learned in the process

“Everything is connected” and Carlo is right. All components of a building’s energy environment are somehow connected to each other, so when you try to reduce the energy expenditure on one end, you will eventually have to spend more energy on the other end to balance out a natural system that you try to control mechanically. 

Not only do we end up using more energy (in certain periods of the year), but it is also happening to the detriment of people’s health: 

“You can actually, you can, you can solve the problem in detail. So, you lose the totality […]. If you focus on one thing, for instance, the thermal balance of a window, you may be neglecting the transmission of daylight through the window because that is reduced.”

It also means that people are getting less and less healthy sunlight each year.

“The sun, […] it is so powerful that we forget it, because we just think that we know, but we don't. So, obviously […] we have forgotten it. We have forgotten this. […] Because we can always add mechanical ventilation, can always cool the building actively, we can always add artificial lighting cheap today.”

I have a few more questions: One of my questions is not far off from where we started the interview, and it seems even more important now: 

Don’t they teach these things at architecture school? Why does it seem that Carlo is the only one advocating for a more natural approach?

Architecture schools and the compromise on comfort

“They don't teach it at architect school because they don't have the pensum for health, for instance. But if you look back, again, many years ago, for instance, in the 1930s, you had architects working together with doctors in Denmark, also in Germany, I'm sure, at least in the Netherlands, you have doctors and architects working together as societal prevention of disease.”

Today Carlo Volf is pretty much alone with his approach. Although he has success and his work is being increasingly recognized for its environmental and health benefits (Carlo and his team are nominated as finalists for the Danish Light Award this year), he explains that there are still many battles ahead.

Most of it has to do with complying with strict energy demands and energy performance targets: 

“I lost a lot of battles because [the] focus was not on health, the focus was on energy performance of the buildings, which was not the case 100 years ago. There was zero focus on energy performance, but 100% focus on health.”

Carlo knows we cannot turn back time. A 100 years ago we also didn’t have the same climate issues we are facing today. So instead of returning to old architecture styles, Carlo Volf invented methods that can improve both energy consumption and health aspects at the same time: 

“[The key is] not losing focus of the totality. If you only focus on details and energy, you will lose. If you only focus on health, you will also probably, very likely, lose, because you will not have a good and balanced energy performance. So, you need to focus on the shared influence of these two things.”

In an ideal world, as Carlo puts it, we would need to lower our expectations for winter and get used to heating less than what we are used to. He suggests it would be better to go back to a more natural rhythm, living more in sync with seasonal changes where people are less active in winter and more active in summertime (due to higher and lower temperatures and more or less exposure to sunlight).

This would include lowering room temperatures during winter and ensuring fresh air flow at nighttime. Another solution would be “zoning” the buildings, meaning that you only heat some rooms, while others stay cold in order to prevent excess energy use.

I am imagining not a lot of people would be pleased to follow this idea.

Next to all the aesthetic expectations that people have when it comes to architecture (like “getting the right view or getting the right cross area in a certain building site”) this is probably also one of the things Carlo has to face when advocating for a more natural approach.

When I ask for examples of success, he proudly refers to the New Psychiatry Bispebjerg where he tested a new technology, called DIM-Lighting, and paired it with a naturalventilation system. 

The DIM-Lighting concept (dynamic LED-lighting) mimics the natural course of the sun by reproducing light in the same angels and intensities as natural sunlight would do throughout the day, the seasons and the whole year. Together with natural ventilation and high transmittance windows, this may have positive therapeutic effects on patients suffering from depression, anxiety and can help them with insomnia.

My little takeaway

What I get from this interview is not really what I expected to find, but it is something far more meaningful than the prettiness of crystal windows:

It is how in our attempt to improve quality of life, we ended up overcomplicating things and overcompensating, to an extent, that we no longer improve our quality of life but instead are trying to forcibly construct something for the sake of aesthetics.

Now I look at windows differently. Especially here in the Nordics.

I still find them pretty, yes, but I also know that sitting in front of a large glass window will not necessarily make me happier and will by far not have the same effect on me like sitting outside in the park.

I think, why this concept works, is still the mere illusion to be one with nature, looking outside and feeling like you are connected with it, whereas in real life, nature is blocked out.

I am happy to have met Carlo. Although he didn’t give me the story that I wanted, he made me aware of something far more complex and meaningful: Not everything is as it seems and not everything pretty means good.

Carlo is very successful with his approach and determined to further inspire fellow colleagues, researchers, professors, architects, students and ordinary people like me to change their mindset around aesthetics and to turn to a more sustainable building style.

So next time you see a big window in Scandinavia, maybe you will be smarter about it than I was in the beginning.