231 Dormer Windows*

. . . this pattern helps to complete Sheltering Roof (117). If you have followed sheltering roof, your roof has living space within it: and it must therefore have windows in it, to bring light into the roof. This pattern is a special kind of Window Place (180), which completes the Roof Vaults (220), in these situations.

We know from our discussion of Sheltering Roof (117) that the top story of the building should be right inside the roof, surrounded by it.

Obviously, if there is habitable space inside the roof, it must have some kind of windows; skylights are not satisfactory as windows - except in studios or workshops - because they do not create a connection between the inside and the outside world - Windows Overlooking Life (192).

It is therefore natural to pierce the roof with windows; in short, to build dormer windows. This simple, fundamental fact would hardly need mentioning if it were not for the fact that dormer windows have come to seem archaic and romantic. It is important to emphasize how sensible and ordinary they are - simply because people may not build them if they believe that they are old fashioned and out of date.

Dormers make the roof livable. Aside from bringing in light and air and the connection to the outside, they relieve the low ceilings along the edge of the roofs and create alcoves and window places.

How should the dormers be constructed? Within the roof vault we have described, the basket which forms the vault can simply be continued to form the roof of the dormer, over a frame of columns and perimeter beams which form the opening.

The other ways of building dormer windows depend on the construction system you are using. Whatever you are using for lintels, columns, and walls, can simply be modified and used in combination to build the dormer

Therefore:

Wherever you have windows in the roof, make dormer windows which are high enough to stand in, and frame them like any other alcoves in the building.

Frame them like Alcoves (179) and Window Place (180) with Gradual Stiffening (208), Columns at the Corners (212), Box Columns (216), Perimeter Beams (217), Wall Membrames (218), Floor-Ceiling Vaults (219), Roof Vaults (220) and Frames as Thickened Edges (225). Put Windows Which Open Wide (236) in them, and make Small Panes (239) . . . .

A Pattern Language is published by Oxford University Press, Copyright Christopher Alexander, 1977.