When I built a house for my family, I designed a glass house based on a modular plan of glass cubes 8' by 8' by 8'. Studying the components, our glass house seems extremely simple. Looking at the blueprints, however, our glass house is quite complicated. It's a 5,500-square-foot concrete structure on a one-acre lot; it has a living room, library, five bedrooms, four-and-a-half baths and an attached garage. Inside and out, the design, materials and construction techniques are innovations for glass houses. Our glass house is completely transparent so that we can live comfortably inside and revel in the landscape, too. The skin is a collection of 16-foot cubes made of 300 panes of glass in 40 custom sizes. We control our privacy with motorized blinds that cover each area of our glass house; the pitch of the slats is controlled incrementally in 15-degree stops. Our glass house includes other materials, including steel, aluminum, Brazilian cherry, French limestone, Wisconsin Lannon stone, teak, concrete pavers and a composite of resin and marble dust. The skin of our glass house makes our entire site an element of the house as well: wherever we are inside, we can look up and find ourselves among Whitespire birches, Katsura trees, white pines, Eastern redbuds, wild grasses and wildflowers. And through the skin of our glass house, when we open the shades, our neighbors can see straight through to our back yard. Light and shadow turn our glass house into a shiny silver fish swimming in a pool of water and light. Our glass house is proof that like all good design, Nature operates in the shortest way possible. Roszak/ADC 1415 Sherman Avenue Suite 101 Evanston, IL 60201 Main  847-425-7555 Sales  847-328-8200 Fax  847-425-7540 email inquiries: info@roszakadc.com copyright© 2003 Roszak/ADC. All rights reserved. Chicago Condos    Chicago Design + Build    Evanston Condos    Glass House    Evanston Architects    Chicago Architects