Monday, February 21, 2011

windows without frames?

This thought came to me while we were holidaying at Phuket, Thailand in one of the really exclusive boutique hotels on Rawaii beach, called Serenity Resorts. We had booked ourselves well in advance into one of the duplex suites with a large sprawling creatively done up living area and kitchenette on the ground floor and bedrooms with very well thought out closet and bath area, on the first floor. The second floor had a dreamy terrace, canopied and all. Complete with sundeck and white outdoor furniture. Our own private terrace where no one was watching!

I know we could not have asked for anything better anywhere in the world!

To add to our delight the ground floor had its entrance from the coffee shop and poolside, and at the other end, opened out to the sea- first we had to step out of the french windows, cross a small private sundeck and pool, climb down exactly four steps, and then we just had to open one little gate and step into the sea! Everyone living in those beach suites had their own pools and their own four steps! And we could even have our own little canoe whenever we wanted to row.

Even when the tide was high, we just hung around in the water- it was tsunami safe, they had told us while we were booking! Actually that was one overriding usp of the entire property. The bigger usp which I experienced while living there, was that we could sit in the living room and feel that we could step out of the french windows straight into the sea- have you ever had that kind of feeling? I certainly had'nt- you know what I mean- just like you open the drawing room doors and step out into your lawn, so here, you could step out into the sea! Each time we took a beach holiday we always booked a beach cottage or room so that we wasted no time in commuting to the beachfront in a golf cart or a whatever. But nothing like this had ever happened to us. We always had to walk ten steps on sand to reach the sea!

My ecstasy knew no limits when I saw our daughter one morning, sitting at the workstation near the french windows with her laptop, connecting with friends. The enormity of the entire setting dawned on me when I checked a picture I took and saw that it looked as if the table was in the sea and she was working on it! The only jarring element was the white opaque window frame which broke my illusion. And messed up the prize winning picture!

So a thought came to mind- is there someone who can eliminate the window frames? How? I dont know. Some quirk of technology and civil engineering, I beg of you. I am just a Masters in Economics, otherwise I would have done it.

Or perhaps create transparent window frames so that they do not get in the way. Make them out of very very very strong polyurethane or whatchamacallit? Polycarbonate?Or just frame with toughened glass? Do you realize what a tremendous invention this would be for aesthetics and interiors? For one thing on the flip side, if you kept your glass windows clean, you would have people perpetually banging into them because they would not be able to figure out where the glass was!

Can you imagine what this may mean? On a highrise, it may mean aerophobia for the phobic, and a dreamy feeling of living in the air for those who live there! A first time visitor to your house would not want to go to the end of the room- what if the glass was'nt there and he teetered on the edge of a 35 storey drop?

In a cottage like the one we stayed in, by the sea, it will probably make me put my feet up just in case they get wet with the sea around me while I am working on my laptop. And it may also get me an award for creating a picture captioned, "workstation on the sea!"

"You dream of things and ask, why? I dream of things and ask, why not?"... someone said this not so long ago......