# House design question

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-design-question/41212>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 14, 2000, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-design-question/41212 "2000-11-14T22:24:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Suo\_Na](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@Suo\_Na](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suo_Na)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2000, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-design-question/41212/1 "2000-11-14T22:24:32Z")

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For the structural engineers and architects out there:

Could you design a structurally sound house if the entire top two feet of each wall were windows?

I’m envisioning a perfectly private room with lots of light–so the walls are solid to six feet, and then glass from there to the ceiling, possibly excepting the corners. I can see doing this in one room, but could you do it for all the outside walls on every floor?

Would it be more/less expensive than a standard design?

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**Author:** ![Shiva](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85e7bf/32.png) [@Shiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shiva)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2000, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-design-question/41212/2 "2000-11-14T22:32:44Z")

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Sure. Think “Skyscraper”. The exterior walls of skyscrapers bear no loads. Many are nearly solid glass.

Bear in mind you couldn’t have Joe the carpenter build this house. It’d have to be internally supported and likely framed with steel.

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**Author:** ![warmgun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecccb3/32.png) [@warmgun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/warmgun)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2000, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-design-question/41212/3 "2000-11-14T22:42:06Z")

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Yes you could. Some glass block is strucural. Also if the rooms are not too large, yes Joe the builder could build it. Posts at the corners with steel or Glu-lams to carry the span. A little more expensive, but not prohibitively so. Post and beam houses are still regularly built by owner-builders.

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**Author:** ![Gunslinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gunslinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gunslinger)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2000, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-design-question/41212/4 "2000-11-14T22:50:21Z")

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It’s possible. If you have loadbearing columns at the corners, it’s easy. That’s called post-and-beam construction, used extensively in old barns. Since only the corners and a beam on top of them hold any weight, you could have whatever sze/shape/placement holes you want in the walls. Higher than 1 floor gets a little more complicated (strength issues), but it’s feasible.

It’d be cheaper compared to a standard framed building of the same material, but might be more expensive to build.

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**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2000, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-design-question/41212/5 "2000-11-15T00:50:17Z")

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OK, as an owner of a post and beam house who is trying to remodel, I can vouch that getting utilities from one floor to another in the kind of house you are imagining here would be more difficult. Everything (electric, plumbing, HVAC) would have to be routed through interior walls.

It would also be a pretty creepy house – true, no one could see in, but you also couldn’t see out. A house that only a reclusive artist or serial killer could really love.