People who live in glass houses should not throw stones be living there because they're going to bake to death. YUM.
Glass-walled apartments are the ultimate domestic status symbol. Fling open the automatic curtains (fine, push the button, with vigor) and take in the view. Watch passersby watch you have sex against your sweeping windows! Enjoy it now, though, because a new study from the Urban Green Council argues that glass-walled condos aren't all they're cracked up to be.
Glass-walled apartments are unambiguously the worst type of apartment in which to live following a summer blackout, with temperatures predicted to shoot into the 90s and then, the 100s in the event that the outage persists for several days, the study shows. Residents of such buildings would be trapped in their own scenic hellscape, sweating puddles onto the Venetian parquet floors for the world to see as their brick-enclosed neighbors chuckle from within their comparatively tepid 85-degree domiciles. Look at this:
Via
The situation isn't great in the winter, either. "Between two buildings that are otherwise equivalent, the one with more window area will be colder during a winter blackout. Even the extra sun through a well-lit south window will barely make up for the absence of insulation; windows will lower temperatures faster than a wall will. During a summer power outage, glass causes the building to heat up more. Daylighting and energy benefits are minimal if windows take up more than 60 percent of the wall area."
Why the hell should we be anticipating a blackout? Because that's exactly what happened following Hurricane Sandy. Temperatures at the time were comparatively mild—the study paints a grim picture of what city life would look like had the thing occurred in more severe months.
But wealthy glassholes can't be bothered to consider the possibility of the Nightmare Prison Saunas their posh lofts will quickly become once relieved of their deity-like powers over climate control. The deliciously-named Alexandra Bernard-Damiba and her financial adviser husband are going full-steam ahead on closing on a $6.35 million full-floor, four-bedroom unit at the Charles, a new highrise being built on the Upper East Side.
"The glass walls are great," she told the Wall Street Journal. "You have a view of Manhattan city life at night that is unbeatable." Mmm, famous last words.
