To me, threshold was about resistance. In terms of a physical or mental/emotional threshold, it is the limit. A limit from one state to another, and between these states is the threshold, a transitory area that you have to pass. Thresholds are not merely reached or broken when you want them to, it requires a force, an opposing force. A force which pushes you beyond a threshold. This is the resistance or opposing force I wanted to portray.
I wanted to create a physical bottle-neck between the studio and the courtyard to achieve resistance. The design began with the study of an existing threshold which had the qualities of my interpretation of threshold.
Figure A. is a study of the a conventional threshold in architecture; the door. This revealed the resistance I was after with conflict between two bodies at opposite sides of the door.
Figure B. shows simple mapping of the intersecting paths of the two bodies when they meet at the threshold and conceptual drawings of the threshold I wanted to create.
The threshold I designed is a dynamic space which shifts and morphs in the fashion of the overlaying lines of the first sketch in figure b. A series of frames is rotated and shifted to create a space which disrupts occupants path of travel. With the use of frames, it is possible to warp the surface of which the occupants travel along and the space of which there upper bodies occupy. The result is that those who occupy the space will need to negotiate with one another and the space itself in order to reach their destinations.
The above image shows several iterations of what the space could look like as it shifts and morphs.
A render of the threshold between the courtyard and the architecture studio in relation to its context and in scale. Below is an animation of the threshold in motion with an inteior perspective view also.
