Mind the Gap: 7 Residences With Gleaming Glass Floors

By many architectural conventions, the interior of homes are walled off in six directions. Imagine standing in the geometric center of a cube, and circling your gaze 360-degrees towards all six faces. Sensory-wise, the experience may be similar to being stuck in a suffocating or windowless room. Luckily, windows habitually perforate the vertical walls of the rooms we inhabit, in order to make way for light, air and tangible connections with the outside world. That said, the following seven projects take an atypical approach to creating breathable space, boldly subverting a typical understanding of interior structures.

In contrast with common practice, these residential designs incorporate glass floors, which dare to challenge the often unquestioned tendency to open homes to the exterior, while partitioning and fragmenting them off internally. By opening up vertical channels within these homes, each glass floor, which concurrently operates as a ceiling, becomes a critical functional tool. Creating vertical tunnels and wells, light may stream through the home from top to bottom, thus carving out new possibilities for livable space below ground. Each project draws critical attention to the expanses of vertical space — an orientation frequently cut short by low stifling ceilings.

8th Ave. by _naturehumaine, Montréal, Canada

By radically reorganizing this home, the architects transformed a two-story duplex into a single-dwelling unit. Exemplifying both novelty and dynamism, the back-end extension was designed with bright colors, angled form and generous glazing. Inside, _naturehumaine worked to expose the natural beauty of the home, while also adding an expansive skylight and a glass floor, which stream new channels of light through the building’s center.

ORANGE by N Maeda Atelier, Tokyo, Japan

At ORANGE, a minimal family home in Japan, children are immersed in a stimulating environment marked by winding slides and a thrilling glass floor. With the floor cantilevered over the home’s main staircase, a white metal rail filled in with protective netting provides a safety barrier for the children, ensuring any trips or falls are prevented.

Vertical Glass House by Atelier FCJZ, Shanghai, China

At Vertical Glass House, the driving concept of modern privacy is boldly subverted. With no exterior windows, the home creates transparency within, thus challenging the tendency to excessively subdivide rooms and create disparate and disconnected spaces for various daily functions. Originally a submission to the Shinkenchiku Residential Design Competition in 1991, the house was finally built in 2013.

Brooklyn New York Loft 1by BFDO Architects pllc, Brooklyn, N.Y., United States

For this project, BFDO designed an attractive Brooklyn loft space marked by exposed brickwork, glass floors and crisp white detailing. Through the use of alluring glass floors, otherwise ordinary spaces were transformed into inviting areas to stop and revel in. Mirroring the loft’s frosted sliding doors, each opaque floor facilitates a new, yet subtle avenue through which light may stream.

Torus by N Maeda Atelier, Saitama, Japan

Torus is a bilayer structure, consisting of a floating box nested within glass and perforated aluminum panels. An open and welcoming retail space at ground level, the upper levels are uniform and visually closed off to the outside. Applying a narrow glass floor, the inner composition forms a vertical tunnel, through which light penetrates each floor of the house.

Brackenbury House by Neil Dusheiko Architects, London, United Kingdom

The radical remodelling of this Hammersmith home opened up an entirely new basement under the house’s existing footprint. Featuring a home cinema, playroom and a guest bedroom, the addition is solely lit by massive light wells cut through the floors above. Through extensive light filtration and natural materials, the house exudes a remarkable sense of beauty and calmness.

Primrose Hill House by Robert Dye Architects, London, United Kingdom

Located on a compact site, Robert Dye Architects extended this house backwards, downwards and sideways during a single intervention. Articulated with a glass flash-gap, the entire street-end wall was extended rightwards. In addition, the architects created a new basement level, which is delicately unified with the ground floor and courtyard area with a thin glass floor that sits against the back wall.