Aluminium windows, The Barn Hotel, Coventry

The hotel had been stripped back to shell condition for redevelopment. Our package was the building envelope: 37 aluminium windows to survey dimensions, plus the commercial entrance doors.

The complication was not the glazing, it was getting to it. When we began there were no internal staircases in the building, so there was no way of carrying units to the upper floors. Every first floor unit went up on an industrial crane, and each lift had to be booked into the main contractor's programme in advance rather than called for on the day.

Aluminium was specified for the sightlines and the service life, which is what a hotel wants from a window it is not going to touch again for twenty years. The frames were made to measurements taken at survey, so they went into an envelope that was still being finished around them.

Aluminium and modern double glazing also cut the heat loss through the envelope, which on a hotel shows up as steadier room temperatures and lower running costs rather than as a number anyone quotes at you.

Most of our commercial work happens at this stage, months before anyone sees the building. It is rare to get back and photograph the finished thing.