Dictionary of Window Types & Architectures

Guide to Window Types & Designs

Window Shape

Window Properties

Common Architectural Styles Where Used

Awning Windows, operate by a crank and open outwards from the bottom, hinged at the sash top. Here is a photo of a modern awning type window observed in Buenos Aires.

A "hopper" window is essentially an awning window turned upside down (and is a design that catches rain and directs it indoors if the hopper window opens "out" towards the outside.

Modern. Also see WINDOW HARDWARE AGE

and WINDOW EFFICIENCY Features & Ratings

Basement windows are set at or below ground level, often requiring a window well. Basement windows are not an architectural style per se, and may be designed as fixed, sliders, hoppers, awnings or other types of windows.

However because their location exposes basement windows to roof spillage, rain splash-up, snow (in some climates) as well as animals and insects, these installations need to be made of durable materials and properly installed and sealed to avoid building damage.

Modern, Victorian. Also see Oriel Windows.

Also see WINDOW HARDWARE AGE

and WINDOW EFFICIENCY Features & Ratings

Bow windows project out from the building wall and may incorporate both fixed vertical glazing and operable sashes of any type, though in the curved frame of a bow window the sash may also be specially constructed and glazed to follow that arc, or the operable units in the bow window may simply be small individual panes that operate as sliders or awnings.

At left our bow window, shown on a home in Boston, MA, is constructed with the bow extending to floor level. And at right is a smaller oriel window, also a bow but whose window opening does not extend to floor level.

Empire style
Gothic Revival style
Italianate style

Second Empire (left, Main building, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie NY, James Renwick, 1865)
Stick

Casement Windows open outwards from hinges mounted at the window left or right vertical side.

This casement window photo shows an incompetent window replacement job - the windows cannot open because they hit the soffit overhang.

Modern.

Also see WINDOW HARDWARE AGE

and WINDOW EFFICIENCY Features & Ratings

Corner Windows on modern buildings require cantilevered support to permit the omission of a corner post. At left is corner window glazing installed by Frank Lloyd Wright at Talesin, West, AZ, at the request of his wife.

In older structures corner windows could be constructed as this ornate Boston MA corner window demonstrates.

Gothic Revival style
Victorian
Others

Double Hung Windows. Both upper and lower window sashes can be moved in position.

See sketch at Definition of Double-Hung and Single Hung Windows

Also see Single Hung windows.

Nearly All, including Modern.

Also see WINDOW HARDWARE AGE

and WINDOW EFFICIENCY Features & Ratings

Eyebrow windows or eyebrow dormers may be fixed or operable and are built protruding through the slope of a roof surface. Our photo shows an antique eyebrow window on a roof in New York state.

Eyebrow windows may also appear as small peaked installations but the classic is rounded such as we show here.

An "eyebrow" window is a miniature dormer in essence but requires less supporting framer than a larger dormer.

An eyebrow window is not a dormer or dormer window (see Dormers, above).

Modern, Praire, others.

Fortress Windows, shown at left, the Ahlambra, Granada, Spain. Here is a similar keyhole-shaped window, also at the Alhambra.

Also see the musket slot "windows" in the top of the parapet wall above this ox-eye window at the Hacienda Tenexac in Tlaxcala, Mexico, ca 1532.

Gothic Revival style

Sketch courtesy of Carson Dunlop Associates

Italianate architecture shown at left,

Hood Top-mold style windows

On Empire style Mansard, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY

Modern.

Also see WINDOW HARDWARE AGE

and WINDOW EFFICIENCY Features & Ratings

Chateauesque
French Eclectic

Gothic Revival (left) - Justin Smith Morrill Homestead, Vermont combines label top & Gothic window styles.
Tudor (rare)

Palladian architectural style, also illustrated at ARCHITECTURE & BUILDING COMPONENT ID

Sketch courtesy of Carson Dunlop Associates, a Toronto home inspection, education, & report writing tool company.

Gothic Revival
Tudor

Chateauesque

Sketch courtesy of Carson Dunlop Associates

Adam
Beaux Arts
Colonial Revival
Georgian
Italian Renaissance
Italianate (also see Second Empire)
Neoclassical

Sketch courtesy of Carson Dunlop Associates

left, Second floor bay window, Poughkeepsie NY (1900)

Bay windows, Pratt House, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY

sketch of a bay window design, courtesy of Carson Dunlop Associates

Projecting Windows Oriel.

Also see Oriel windows above in this table.

Single-hung sashed windows. Only one of the two sashes, usually the lower unit, can be moved. The other window sash is fixed in place. Shown, Palmer House, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY.

See sketch at Definition of Double-Hung and Single Hung Windows Also see Double-Hung windows.

Gothic, Victorian, Various.

Also see WINDOW HARDWARE AGE

and WINDOW EFFICIENCY Features & Ratings

Stained-Glass windows. Colored glass cut to form an image or pattern, secured in place by lead.

Shown: fixed stained glass windows on a Victorian architecture home in Poughkeepsie, NY. Here is a photo of a more ornately-framed stained glass window On a church in Barcelona, Spain.

Storm windows are additional windows, fixed or operable, that are hung or installed over the main window sash to reduce heat loss through the window.

Traditional wood-sashed storm windows hang from brackets above the window opening, are secured at their bottom by hooks and eyes or possibly external turnbuckles, and were designed to be removed completely and swapped for screens during warm weather.

A modern (usually aluminum) "triple-track" storm window incorporates a movable screen and upper and lower widow sashes, obviating the need for seasonal ladder-climbing.

Each layer of glazing added to a window cuts heat loss through the window glass by about one third, but if the window is drafty any energy savings will be lost until the drafts are found and sealed.

Also see AIR LEAK MINIMIZATION and AIR SEALING STRATEGIES as well as ENERGY SAVINGS RETROFIT LEAK SEALING GUIDE

And see STORM WINDOW WEEP HOLES - why we need weep holes to avoid sill rot at storm windows

Window Styles / Nomenclature by Window Pane Count in Each Sash - x over y sashes

Here we a give a few of the very large number of window sash designs that are referred to according to the number of panes or "lights" in each sash (of an upper and lower sash pair), starting with a

Two over Two window sash (left)

x over y window nomenclature generally pertains only to window sashes in which one (or both) sashes open by sliding vertically.