Window Stories: The significance of windows to Germans - a qualitative, anthropological investigation of the qualities of a window

This research project has investigated 17 households in Germany (cities and rural areas). The main aim was to learn about the significance of the window to these people: What they think of their windows, how, when and why they use them in their everyday life, if they have a favorite window and why, as well as the opposite. The report also includes a special focus on overheating and people’s strategies against this. Knowing about what people appreciate in a window and their actual practices and the reasons for their behaviour may be useful in many different ways, for instance to inform public strategies for overheating or to communicate with people in a more user informed way. The people participating in the study lived in different houses and had different backgrounds. They were involved in the project over a period of 3-4 months. The prolonged participation was facilitated through a variety of ethnographic tools that required their involvement, such as making a diary of their heating experiences during a random week in the summer of 2014, taking photos of windows and sending postcards with specific tasks.