Blinds in River Club

A view over open ground is the reason these houses are laid out the way they are, and it is also the reason they glare. Without buildings or trees to interrupt it, low morning and late afternoon sun comes in almost horizontally, under any overhang, straight into the room. No overhead shading fixes that on its own.

What does fix it is a vertical layer that can be dropped when the sun is low and lifted when it isn't. Sunscreen roller blinds across the entertainment glass handle the daily case; a zip screen on the exposed end of a patio handles the worst hour. Both keep the view, which on a River Club house is the entire point — nobody here wants a blind that trades the fairway for comfort.

The glazed wings themselves are usually wide, which pushes the specification in a particular direction. Four-metre stack doors are heavy work on a chain, so we motorise them; panel blinds and verticals both handle the span cleanly where a single roller would be unwieldy; and linking several blinds to one remote means the whole wing closes with one button at sundowner time rather than six separate trips.

Outside, folding-arm awnings give the terrace post-free shade without putting anything permanent between the house and the view.