A window is a need and a right ; an asset and a liability . It lets in light, air, and view and lets out heat, cold, and pressure. A window is often an exception— it is a transparent figure in an otherwise opaque wall that marks the passage of time. Or, it exists without comparison, having become a window-wall, a curtain-wall, that privileges expanse over enclosure. A window’s shape, layers, and assembly signify the convergence of specialist knowledge. It is at once the concern of the thermodynamicist, manufacturer, engineer, and architect, as it is the physician, environmental psychologist, counselor, and anthropologist. Our understanding of a window should be technical and social; spatial and temporal; functional and ethical. The potential of a window is ever-evolving as it now becomes the interface to an otherworld for the quarantined, lonely, and at-home learner.

The 2020 EBD Research Studio will explore the demands on a window, and the total potential there-in for it to do and be more both environmentally and culturally. Studio teams will make one proposal demonstrating the comprehensive rethinking of a window informed by a program of research, assessment, design and prototyping.