Doors.

This entire project was brought into focus for me when W brought me a copy of a Dwell magazine. For months I had been cobbling together images of building I liked with very little success. Little did I know that there was an entire magazine out there that focused on the type of architecture I enjoy, and which explained the approaches and process to complete amateurs like myself.

I subscribe to the magazine now, and cannibalize it monthly looking for any images that might be relevant to Plan B. Well, this month's issue, focusing on one of my favorite topics--Small spaces--, published an article on a house in Japan which was long, but which wanted access to the out of doors. The result was a sliding glass door that ran the entirety of the house, 6 or 7 panels long. Then I saw a shot in the magazine of the door fully collapsed, and I realized what Guillermo has planned for the living room and Kitchen doorways.

It looks great. Better than I could have hoped. The doors are all separate glass panels with woods frames. Each one is on a separate track. The tracks were, in the article, made of wood, and the doors ran back down then and would stack up, like cards, when open, and then slide into a glass wall when closed . I am very pleased with this. I was worried that the doors might be flimsy, or difficult to regularly operate. But the images in the article make this approach to the glass wall appear sound and simple.

In case you have not all been on board with me while I have writing about this project, one of the guiding principals of Plan B has been dependability. I did not want a house that was a sports car, beautiful and high performance, but finicky and often in need of repair. The fact is that the house is open to the elements, and elements have a way of testing houses as they test people. This door was unfamiliar to me, and I am grateful to Guillermo for so universally adopting my goals, and to Dwell for showing me now, what I will see in real wood and glass in a couple months.