How to Stylishly Bring More Sunlight Into Your Home
Design pros are turning to a chic alternative to the roof-puncturing skylight: the interior window. Here’s what you need to know.
2 min
THE OPEN floor plan lost considerable appeal once the din of WFH video calls began echoing through it. As Americans have grown more interested in walls, but no less interested in airiness, a new-old solution has emerged: interior windows. These apertures let light jump from room to room while creating a soothing sense of separation.
When renovating her historic 1902 home in Grand Rapids, Mich., interior designer Jean Stoffer found 100-year-old storm windows there. As part of a new wall pierced by a wide doorway, they proved a handy way to introduce a distinct but not too darkening division between her grand living room and kitchen-seating area. She then painted the windows’ wood sashes black, in keeping with the home’s exterior windows. “The style of an interior window should be the same as or complementary to the home’s exterior windows,” Ms. Stoffer advised.
Other designers stress the importance of visually quiet portals. Max Worrell, an architect in Brooklyn, recommends windows with slight frames that “go away as much as possible.” In a South Carolina home, interior designer Barbara Westbrook also wanted an interior window to disappear. Atlanta architecture firm Historical Concepts installed nearly floor-to-ceiling glazing between a living room and a reading room (which has windows overlooking the outdoors), making the reading room “look like a porch,” she said. She matched the trim work around the interior windows to the colour of the reading room’s walls so that “your eye does not stop at the window but looks through the window.”
Vintage windows have advantages. Designers in search of handsome frames have more leeway when they needn’t factor in heat retention and element resistance. Retrouvius, a salvage company and design studio in London, often repurposes exterior windows no longer up to code, to add “an instant historical reference” in older buildings, said co-founder Adam Hills.
Wedging even a small transom window above a door frame can brighten darker spaces like laundry and powder rooms. Assuming the doorway is a standard 80 inches tall, you need a ceiling height of at least 9.5 feet, said Stephanie Sabbe of Sabbe Interior Design, in Nashville, Tenn. Any lower, and your transom will look squished.
Costs for an interior window vary greatly. On one end of the spectrum, explained Ms. Stoffer, is a simple wooden-sash window with minimal millwork set into a non-load-bearing partition wall that’s, say, 6 feet wide in a room with an 8-foot ceiling. A skilled carpenter can turn such a project around for roughly $1,500. Ditto for a standard transom.
Meanwhile, if you’re planning to install a custom steel window with complicated moldings into a bigger existing wall with mechanicals in it, you’ll need an engineer and other tradespeople. Cost: in the tens of thousands of dollars.
If all this glass seems like an overshare waiting to happen, know that light and modesty can coexist. To brighten a windowless bathroom in a Brooklyn home, Mr. Worrell cut an aperture in the wall between bed and bath, then filled it with a translucent but not transparent glass. “In the bath, you get daylight from the bedroom’s windows, while in the bedroom, you see only a shadowy figure,” he explained. The result is less edgy than it sounds, he said. “There’s a bit of play with voyeurism, but it’s discreet.”
Copyright 2020, Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. LEARN MORE
Set on one of the city’s last absolute riverfront sites, The Riversdale by Mosaic combines irreplaceable waterfront ownership with one of Brisbane’s most significant residential opportunities.
Margot Robbie may have travelled from a Queensland farm to the highest reaches of Hollywood, but a reported $28 million property deal suggests the Gold Coast has never lost its hold on her. The Australian actor and producer is believed to be the mystery buyer of Redwood, a seven-acre Currumbin Valley estate transformed into the …
Continue reading “Margot Robbie Reportedly Behind $28 Million Currumbin Valley Homecoming”
3 min
A collection of only 18 full-floor and two-storey residences has launched on one of the Gold Coast’s most tightly held stretches of beachfront.
AMALI will rise 22 levels at 3535–3537 Main Beach Parade, occupying an 810sqm site with no road separating the building from the sand.
Prices begin at $10.2 million for the three-bedroom full-floor residences, while the development’s two-storey penthouses are being offered from $25 million. Completion is anticipated in early 2029.
The project has received development approval and is being delivered by Eastment Group of Companies, the developer behind the nearby AMANI Main Beach. Core Property Partners is overseeing project strategy, development and construction management.
Bayden Goddard’s BGD Architects has designed the tower, with interiors by multidisciplinary studio Tom Mark Henry and landscaping by Arcadia Landscape Architecture. Kollosche New Projects is handling sales and marketing.
Eighteen residences across 22 levels
Rather than maximising the number of apartments on the beachfront parcel, AMALI has been designed around privacy, space and a low resident population.
The tower will contain 16 full-floor residences and two two-level penthouses. Each home will have uninterrupted views over the Pacific Ocean and private lift access, giving residents an arrival experience more closely associated with a standalone house.
The standard full-floor residences will provide approximately 378sqm of space, with three bedrooms, three bathrooms and parking for two cars. Prices start at $10.2 million.
With only one residence occupying each typical level, the floor plans have been designed to capture natural light, ocean breezes and views in several directions. Generous living spaces will transition into outdoor areas overlooking the beach, creating a direct visual relationship with the coastline.
The two penthouses will extend across two levels and offer approximately 898sqm, with four bedrooms, five bathrooms and four parking spaces each.
Priced from $25 million, each penthouse will also have access to a private rooftop domain incorporating an entertaining lounge, bar, kitchen, terrace and swimming pool. From this elevated position, views will extend across both the ocean and the Gold Coast skyline.
Architecture informed by the coastline
AMALI’s architecture has been conceived as a restrained response to its beachfront setting.
The 22-storey form uses curved edges and layered horizontal elements to soften the tower’s profile, while extensive glazing opens the residences towards the ocean.
Inside, Tom Mark Henry has developed a palette based on the colours and textures of the coast. Natural stone and warm timber veneers will be combined with bronze and brushed-brass detailing, bespoke materials and sculptural lighting.
The approach is intended to create homes that are highly finished without feeling overly formal. Earthy tones and tactile materials will provide warmth, while expansive glazing and open living areas keep the ocean as the primary visual feature.
Private lift access, large floor plates and the absence of shared residential corridors on the typical levels reinforce the project’s emphasis on discretion.
Wellness on the beachfront
Residents will have access to a dedicated wellness precinct anchored by a heated infinity-edge pool overlooking the beach.
The facilities will also include a fully equipped gym, steam room and hot and cold plunge pools, combining exercise and recovery spaces within the building.
Direct beachfront access will allow residents to move from the development to the sand without crossing Main Beach Parade—one of the project’s defining points of difference.
The design positions these shared amenities as an extension of the beachfront lifestyle rather than a separate resort-style podium. With only 18 households using them, the spaces are also expected to offer a greater degree of privacy than facilities in larger apartment towers.
A tightly held Main Beach position
AMALI’s site is within walking distance of the Tedder Avenue dining and retail precinct and a short drive from Marina Mirage, Southport Yacht Club and the broader Main Beach marina district.
The location also places it near a growing cluster of luxury hotel, residential and lifestyle projects reshaping the northern end of the central Gold Coast.
Main Beach has become an increasingly important prestige-apartment market, supported by its relative scarcity of absolute beachfront development sites and proximity to both the ocean and Broadwater.
AMALI enters that market at its highest end. Its $10.2 million entry price positions even the standard residences firmly within the trophy-apartment category, while the two penthouses will compete with the most expensive new residences being offered on the Gold Coast.
The development follows AMANI, another boutique Main Beach project involving Eastment Group, BGD Architects and Core Property Partners. That continuity has allowed the team to carry a similar focus on large residences and limited apartment numbers into an absolute beachfront setting.
Sales are being led by Michael Kollosche and Harry Kakavas of Kollosche New Projects, with private presentations available through the project’s Broadbeach display suite.
With development approval secured and completion targeted for early 2029, AMALI’s launch adds just 18 buying opportunities to a beachfront market where scarcity is part of the proposition.
Its combination of full-floor living, private lift access and direct connection to the sand places the project somewhere between a luxury apartment tower and a collection of elevated beachfront houses—an increasingly sought-after model at the top of the Gold Coast market.
A&K Sanctuary unveils Kitirua Plains Lodge, a sustainability-focused luxury property shaped by landscape, local craft and contemporary safari architecture.
Australia’s market is on the move again, and not always where you’d expect. We’ve found the surprise suburbs where prices are climbing fastest.
