Take Soothing Peeks From Windows Around The World If You’re Bored With Your View
By Mikelle Leow, 17 Jul 2020
Screenshot via WindowSwap
There can only be so many times to stop and smell the roses, especially when they’re pretty much the only things you’ve been looking at during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Thankfully, a wholesome new site called WindowSwap introduces a refreshing change to switching up Zoom backgrounds and feigning awe over your coworkers’ backdrops. The website—created by Singapore-based husband and wife creatives Vaishnav Balasubramaniam and Sonali Ranjit—invites you to look through the windows of homes across the world, essentially offering the opportunity of “traveling without moving.”
In a statement shared by The Stable, Ranjit explained the couple’s growing weariness of their “lockdown view,” and thus made it their mission to set up “a place on the internet where we can look through an open window somewhere else in the world.”
“Let’s face it, it’s going to be a while before we travel again and wake up to a new view outside our windows,” Ranjit detailed. “So until then, why not voyeuristically travel by looking out of somebody else’s window for a while?”
She added that the pair hopes “this way of ‘traveling without moving’ will give the world as much joy as it has given us.”
Each view presents up to 10 minutes of quality people-, bird- or traffic-watching—along with audio—transporting you to Austria, India, Spain, Germany and more, in seconds. The clips intentionally include glimpses of window frames to simulate the experience of glancing through an open window.
If you’d like, you can also share your view by recording a five- to 10-minute horizontal video, with some of the window frame in sight, to [email protected].
If you’re bored of the landscape outside your home, as you are expected to be, perhaps you’d be keen to open a window and look out from somewhere else. Preview some screen captures below, and enjoy more atmospheric views from WindowSwap.
Screenshot via WindowSwap
Screenshot via WindowSwap
Screenshot via WindowSwap
i'm ... obsessed with windowswap? it's so nice????? https://t.co/4RKNbiUAMT
— karen han (@karenyhan) July 14, 2020
How have I just discovered Window Swap? It's a better view than a rainy grey day outside of mine. I've currently got the Swiss Mountains on! https://t.co/aD4D94m22W #windowswap pic.twitter.com/M0VTvDFmYQ
— Ben Petts (@BenPT_s) July 15, 2020
Bored of your working from home/lockdown view? Then borrow someone else's! Love this site - simple idea but quite mesmerising https://t.co/QCi3hKzA5F #windowswap pic.twitter.com/kwwXhDakP1
— tilt (@wearetilt) July 17, 2020
What a wonderful service: WindowSwap opens up a new window somewhere in the world. And poignant for me to open up a window in Bavaria – my parents who I've not seen for 6 months are just beyond those mountains... https://t.co/7mhlep516K pic.twitter.com/KmuMsouh7F
— Kati Price (@katiprice) July 14, 2020
WindowSwap giving me what I really want this morning. https://t.co/p2HMGtr5SN pic.twitter.com/EVqmROLMaF
— Jơ̸̼̖̬̪̯̿͑͛̎nà̴͉͎thà̴͉͎n Spé̸̡̩̙̮̈̇̓̓̑ights (@jspeights) July 15, 2020
[via Archinect, screenshots via WindowSwap]