Glass Blocks for Natural Light

In a previous entry, I wrote about the use of skylights for overhead lighting. The two things I requested from our architect prior house construction were good ventilation and natural lighting.

Not satisfied with the final plans, I suggested the use of glass blocks to further illuminate the interior. The logical place to have these installed was by the stairwell where there are no casement windows.

In this entry, I chose a specific glass block for this purpose.

Well, here are the glass blocks as installed. DH plays "Rose" in the Titanic movie and presses her palm on one of the blocks from the outside. You can see the amount of distortion afforded by the glass block pattern. DH's face on the next glass block is not recognizable.

I just love the amount of natural light allowed by these glass blocks. Privacy is not compromised though as seen in the distortion. But for security sake, the visibility allows someone inside to see if there's somebody outside.

The laddered layout of the glass blocks at the bottom following the steps of the stairs was the foreman's suggestion. It's certainly a nice touch and appears to light the stair steps. Here are the glass blocks as viewed from the side at the foot of the stairs.

That's Karen upstairs working on the computer in the family hall. There's another set of glass blocks installed further up in the stairwell. It's a simple square pattern of 5 x 5 blocks.

I could just imagine how dark and gloomy this wall would be had the glass blocks not been installed. I would've wanted that there was no gap between the two sets. But there was a beam getting in the way and they're a bit expensive too at Php72 a piece.

This is the view from the top of the stairs looking at the two sets of installed glass blocks.