Windows without Doors: Toward an Architecture of Digital Living

For a little over seven years, my husband and I have lived in Downtown Huntington Beach, our house being a pastel yellow with white trim 1922 cottage-style house—complete with white picket fence. While there are still numerous other " historical " homes in our area, in many cases dating from the years marking the construction of the Southern Pacific Railroad, many more have given way to new towering stucco structures with (predominately) glass facades, structures that span the 25' X 117' lots upon which they are built. Certainly one is struck by the contrast between the old and new in the Downtown and Old Town districts of Surf City, USA, a contrast made more visible in the twilight hours when the blue glow of cathode ray tubes spills out into the relatively still neighborhoods. Generally, the older homes emit a curtain-or shade-filtered blue glow from a single square window that sits to one side or the other of a front door. In contrast, the newer houses generate an unfiltered (by curtains or shades) and unobstructed (by