That is a really cool design. I was thinking that they should have made something slide over the "floor" glass though, so you don't get footprint/shoeprints on it (and thus have to clean it after every time you use it).

They could use Smart Glass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_glass) to make the bottom opaque when in balcony position.

A rug?

Something to save from inevitable upskirts at least.

Did they just add that? I mean, it does appear to have a whitish barrier that slides up to cover the floor.

That looks like a reflection of the wall.

They should have shown her big fat boyfriend come out there also, so that #1, I'll feel safe about the weight rating, and #2, I'll know that even if I'm big and fat, this window will help me land babes.

Their about page shows a group of people all standing on the balcony. http://www.bloomframe.nl/about.php

If you'd fit such a balcony to an existing app building and the balcony indeed would hold the weight of a group of people, I would still wonder whether the house's frame would hold the balcony.

She must live in an area with no flying insects.

Am I the only one who thought "hey, mini skirt and transparent balocny floor...nicccceee"

Erm, how do you clean the outside of the glass? If you're high enough to benefit from putting a balcony in then this design prevents you from cleaning the outside.

I know that Pilkington made some hydrophobic layer for one of their products a while ago that meant that the rain would clean the window (or a hose), but that was years ago and doesn't seem to have found favour (I've not heard of it since).

From the pdf on the site, it looks like it can hold over 1,500 lbs.

[1] 2500 N/m^2 * (2.62m * 1.05m) => pounds

very cool. does it have to take so long to deploy or were they just going for dramatic tension?

Cool stuff, but the video should be faster, or at least allow you to jump ahead.

If the video were faster, people would complain about it being faster than the actual device.

Must be fun to clean the inside of the window

An idea so simple that I would never thought of it in a million year.

Because it's a solution looking for a problem?

Make a balcony, add a sliding (or pocket) glass door and done. Why would you need to convert between them?

in places with long winters, makes sense. Eg. In boston, october - may the weather is crappy, and there is not a need for a balcony. You will have to deal with cleaning it, snow, etc.

Just lock it, and when the good weather comes, open it. Plus it seems that it will be easy to retrofit to existing apt. buildings.

If it is cheap enough, why not.

The glass has to provide good insulation then. Also, I don't know for Boston, but in Quebec if there's nothing to stop mosquitoes it's essentially unusable...

This will not be easy to retrofit.

Studs are not typically designed to handle cantilever loads.

You would pull the stud right out of the wall. You'll at the very least need new (stiffer) studs. By the time you are done with the internal reconstructions (and if it's a load bearing wall, good luck), this will be very expensive.

An ordinary deck is far far cheaper. This is cool, but not practical.