Thresholds in Space and Time

Abstract

In architecture there is perhaps no better opportunity to capture movement and change than in the design of thresholds. They can be a simple strip of metal beneath a doorway, barely noticed as you pass over it, or a grand atrium that you stop and marvel at on your way into the office. They can manifest as a change of materials or finishes, or of some parameter such as ceiling height. They might even be immaterial altogether, like the boundary between light and shadow.

Thresholds transcend the physical to effect a psychological experience. They can be spatial or temporal or some combination of the two, but whatever form they take, all thresholds can be said to be mediators of our movement from one spatial status to another. Inside to outside, public to private, here to there. Too often our buildings relegate these changes to doors or openings that have little connection to the buildings they are a part of, and so our awareness of passage from space to space is diminished. This thesis explores ways to enrich the architecture of the threshold so that it doesn't merely recede to the bounds of our perception.