Steven Heller at Design Observer hits on a point that I’ve mentioned once or twice before – the ridiculousness of people living in glass houses. Yes, it looks great in the photos, but most people either do not lead a sufficiently minimalist life to carry it off, or they can’t afford the high-end window treatments that covering up such glass excess really requires. (Mies van der Rohe had the right idea at the Seagram Building – everyone gets the same blinds, and they can only be in one of three positions. That doesn’t work with condos.)

Glass living works if you live in a glass tower on the waterfront, but as a replacement for the typical city-scale apartment house, it’s a failure (and to make matters worse, all that glass is an environmental failure as well).

[via Curbed]