Through the arched window

With the Nuremberg Toy Fair happening this week, we're being treated to loads of dodgy pictures of LEGO® summer sets. I'm enjoying playing "spot the recolour", which is quite challenging given the low lighting and white balance issues that the photographers are facing. (The best pics I've seen to date, via Brick Fan, have been taken by Andres Lehmann for Ukonio.de.) But even more, I'm enjoying playing "spot the new part". I've seen a handful so far, many quite obvious, and they might come to be reviewed here in the fullness of time. But there's one that I found really exciting and was interested to see if you guys think I've got the right end of the stick. It appears in the rather thrilling 41101 Heartlake Grand Hotel.

I didn't spot it on first viewing but it's actually quite evident: a Brick Yellow [TLG]/Tan [BL] semi-circular window with radiating panes. There's several in the model but the clearest view is of the one just top left of the water feature beneath the white arch. (Yes, yes, I know there's also a very exciting new decorative gold piece above the door! Another time...)

This new window is perhaps not the most versatile piece, but I think it's really lovely and will add a lot of character to buildings. I can't tell if it contains (or fits) a transparent pane. It is set back into the building, so it's not even absolutely clear what the exact shape of this piece is. It could conceivably be a 1x6x2 rectangular brick with arched window, but what feels more versatile and logical to me is that it would be a 1x4x1⅔ bow with window designed to fit exactly inside the 1x6x2 arch. 4x4 domes do this, as seen here in 10246 Detective's Office. I neglected to realise the significance of this when reviewing Detective's Office, and more importantly didn't even make the connection when writing about the revised shapes of arches back in March last year.

The raised interior curves of new arches puzzled me at that time, especially as the distance they'd all been raised by was equal to the small lip found on bows (and slopes) - yet none seemed to fit. But now that Detective's Office has alerted me to the fact that the previously existing 4x4 dome fits, and possibly this new bow window too, credence is given to an exciting theory - perhaps TLG have designed a bunch of new bows and/or bows with windows to fit inside the full range of LEGO arches?

I'm sure they have, within their Design Lab anyway - if only for patenting purposes. It is quite another matter whether they would actually ever decide to put these into sets. But I love the idea.