Boundaries and Thresholds as a Dynamic Binding Force
I am trying to learn about boundaries and thresholds in the built environment because I want to see how they are manifested, how they distinguish between this and that, how they communicate or conceal information, and how they interact and create a dialogue in order to help my reader understand how architectural boundaries and thresholds can “encourage the choreography of dynamic relationships among persons moving within their domains.”
Quote from Body, Movement, and Architecture - Kent C. Bloomer and Charles W. Moor
It would work well to situate my building or buildings on a site where there is a significant boundary dividing two communities, two groups of people, or many groups for that matter. To test my theories it would work best to have this boundary be large in scale, unsightly, or cumbersome. It would help for this boundary to be located in an urban setting because this implies wider demographics. This would afford me the opportunity to create a series of intervening boundaries and thresholds that act together to bridge the gaps, be them physical, cultural, etc. These boundaries and threshold moments would create a transition zone, which would “encourage the choreography of dynamic relationships among persons moving within their domains.” It will link together people which otherwise would remain separate.
This transition zone could have any number of residential, retail, educational, or infrastructural components that will undoubtedly combine and interact in perhaps uncommon ways. This will allow for the creation of additional boundaries and thresholds between the users of the specific programmatic elements. In effect the entire intervention will function, through boundaries and thresholds, as a connector as will each individual component.
It may work to have a “kit of parts” consisting of various types of boundary and threshold elements that can be employed in various situations with some form of underlying logic. This way type a) can be used in a situation such as blank and type b) in a situation such as blank so that the user can read the composition.
Boundaries + Thresholds = Relationships
Boundaries and Thresholds as a Dynamic Binding Force
This annotated bibliography contains numerous sources that deal with ideas of boundaries and thresholds and how they can be used in the built environment as a “dynamic binding force” to form relationships between otherwise unlinked people. The sources are organized under headings, which indicate a train of thought or a method for working with these boundaries and thresholds.
Boundaries and thresholds can be manifested in many different physical or psychological ways through built form. A boundary can exist in the form of a permeable labyrinth of structure that draws you in by intermittent visual slivers of movement, music, or the smell of food. A boundary can exist in the form of a sensual barrier of mist expressing white noise. A boundary can exist in the form of a subconscious interpretation of an image, form, etc. Nevertheless each boundary affords the opportunity for a threshold and can act as a binding force for its users. The “braincoats” in the Blur building, for example, act as a threshold communicating personal trait similarities to people in pavilion, something that never happens in everyday life. Thus, the barrier of mist leads to the threshold of the “braincoats” and the unseen becomes visual.
The works cited in this bibliography are written by architects and non-architects alike and reflect a broad understanding of boundaries, thresholds, and the resulting social interactions that occur as a result of these forces.
(Experiential Architecture)
1. Zumthor, Peter, Plinio Bachmann, Karoline Gruber, Ida Gut, Daniel Ott, and Max Rigendinger, Swiss Sound Box. Edited by Roderick Honig. Boston, MA: Birkhauser Publishers for Architecture, 2000.
This book covers the Swiss Pavilion and everything about it from the initial concept to the final completion. I talks about the building materials, the construction process, the contractors, the people working in the pavilion, their selection process, the food they served, the music they played etc. It is organized in a very peculiar manner. It consists of “headwords” in alphabetical order followed by short explanations. The headwords and explanations try to describe the physical and sensual experience of the pavilion. Of particular pertinence to this thesis project are the ideas of the form and organization of the pavilion. It is essentially a composition of ninety-nine stacked walls arranged in shifting perpendicular groupings that create a labyrinth with intermittent communal spaces where the shifts occur. The pavilion is described as a dense forest with sunlit clearings. Within the spaces are various food stations and musical performances that constantly rotate. The smells and sounds can be sensed outside and people can be seen but only their feet and intermittent slivers of their bodies since the walls are made of gapped stacks of wood. The pavilion is essentially a composition of thresholds and boundaries that bring intrigued people together in their pursuit of the inner adventure.
2. Diller Elizabeth, and Ricardo Scofidio. Blur: The Making of Nothing. New York, NY:
Harry N. Abrams, 2002.
This book explores the Blur building, a project by Diller, Sofidio, and Renfo that was completed for the Swiss Expo in 2002. This book contains conceptual diagrams, the architect’s research, sketches, drawings, correspondence between commissioners, contractors, and material providers, newspaper and media coverage, technical systems documentation, and construction documents. It encompasses everything about the project. This building relates to this thesis because it deals with boundaries and thresholds, in that the project is a structure that exists and at the same time does not exist. It is merely a cloud of water surrounding a horizontal plane that forms intangible boundaries and thresholds resulting in a whited out space that erases sensual abilities. To navigate the pavilion the users wear “braincoats” which detect personality commonalities and light up to establish a relationship between the wearers. This project creates a sensory boundary through a mist in order to reveal things about people that others would ordinarily not be able sense in such a setting.
3. Unwin, Simon. Doorway. New York, NY: Routledge, 2007.
This book explores “architectural doorways” in terms of their geometry, the experience they generate, and their ability to organize space in order to establish the ways that doorways allow or deny passage and the effect this has on the built environment. The author states, “The intent is to illustrate how doorways and thresholds impinge on one’s experience of the world.” This book is structured into seven sections. They are “Introduction,” “The Powers of Doorways,” “The Geometry of Doorways, ” “Experiencing Doorways,” “Organizing Space,” and “Architecture Without Doorways.” Each section speaks theoretically about the topic and then cites an architectural example for analysis. The book relies heavily on drawings, mainly plans and sections to illustrate these main ideas.
(Phenomenology and Architecture)
4. Bloomer, Kent C. and Charles W Moor. Body, Memory, and Architecture. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1977.
Bloomer and Moor’s thesis is that the human body is the basis for understanding oneself, the community, and the built environment. He argues that the senses of the body generate an understanding of our internal center in turn generating geometries, forming emotions, and spaces. He believes that if we embrace this concept and infuse these ideas into the built environment then we will create successful architecture. Chapter seven, entitled “Body Movement” pertains to this thesis. It talks about facades and their ability to generate a subconscious perception of boundaries and thresholds by the comparison of a curtain wall skyscraper to a ziggurat style skyscraper. In short it states that the former creates a vertical shaft boundary that even Superman could not escape while the latter creates a vertical canyon of footings and stepping-stones that one could theoretically climb out of. This is understandably not accurate, but it is the way we perceive this imagined space. This book also takes about Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International and Communist Russian posters in terms of how they performed as a “call to move, implying a stage and arena for the movement and for the complex interactions of many bodies in motion. Compositionally a new whole was made by the relationship of the bodies to one another and by their further relationship to built or planar form.” Lastly the book talks about the dialogue between the stair and the ramp in Corbusier’s Villa Savoye in terms of boundaries and thresholds.
(Programmatic Merging)
5. Hays, K. Michael, Unprecedented Realism: The Architecture of Machado and Silvetti.
New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 1995.
This book is a collection of works by Machado and Silvetti that are unified by an idea coined “unprecedented realism.” The projects try to create a surreal type of reality in order to “demonstrate that a built reality other than the existing ones is possible.” There are two projects in this book that are of particular importance to this thesis project. Both projects deal with the idea of combining building typologies, working out the boundaries and thresholds between them, and the subsequent creation of relationships and community through these moves. These projects are the Carnegie-Mellon University Center and A Project for the City of Este. The typologies of each component are distinct, as well as their function, but the layering of each typology and function creates a unified whole with its’ own identity. This is done through the careful calculation and manipulation of boundaries and thresholds. This book is a personal account by the architects with drawings, hand renderings, and text.
