Friday, March 2, 2007

Thresholds

So, I have done some research over the past few days about R.M. Schindler's House in California as well as on Andy Warhol's Factory. The research on Schindler was particularly interesting because it reminded me of Wright's approach to residential design.....specifically his prairie style houses. Many of these are centered around a communal feature, the hearth, and pinwheel out towards the landscape from there. I think this is how I see cohousing projects. They start from a center, or spine, and progress from public to private accordingly. In thinking about this, it seems clear that transitions from public to private and thresholds are incredibly important. I almost feel as if things have come full circle. In the chair lift project I was interested in a space that was not defined by any real physical boundaries. In the area rug project, I was interested in implied spaces created by area rugs. Both of these are spaces that are implied, but are not defined by physical boundaries. There were no walls; just changes in material or forced space between you and the ground. Brad's work on walls is also very informative as different kinds of walls can be different barriers. Now the trick is to figure out how to start diagramming spaces that are there, but not physically blocked out.

1 comment:

anita cooney said...

Sarah - it is great that you see a link between the chair lift and the area rugs and the co-housing study. You are on target; there are boundaries that are are hard and those that are implied; there are degrees of enclosure that are equally solid and those that are equally ephemeral. NOW that you see this, i ti would be great to redo the diagram drawings of the chair lift and the area rugs as they both work to establish your lexicon of pertinent types of boundaries.