Mediating geography: threshold places

My thesis investigations are based on ideas of threshold and mediation in architecture. Movement or mediation between distinct places implies thresholds; skin, walls, doors, bridges etc. This mediating geography describes the physical conditions of the elements that enclose, separate and negotiate between us and the surrounding world. These elements have a duration and an intensity of experience as we pass through them or a power and significance as they enfold. Exploring mediations at various scales, from the city to the house, and the door to the skin, further the ideas of an architecture of reconciliation (reconciling between two or more specific places). This is about finding an architecture based on the meeting place between conditions; light and dark, public and private, fast and slow, which might become more than an object building, to be a geography of mediation which meaningfully describes the spaces, structures, programmes and experiences of inhabitation. The first part of the project consists of an essay entitled ‘Mediating Geography: Threshold places’, in which these ideas are outlined and explored at a conceptual level, engaging with other texts, images, buildings and experiences to highlight areas of testing. Some of the ideas are then tested on a specific site, creating an architectural project which begins to question the thesis at a small, easily digestible scale. Abstract The second part is a more developed site specific architectural project. This allows the thesis to be tested using physical parameters of local environment and geography, social and economic conditions, programme and users experience to enhance the possibilities of the exploration. Following my investigations in mediation and the space between conditions, the programme for the project developed as a place of performance including making, movement and learning as part of performance. The traditional thresholds between actor and spectator are questioned and spaces of circulation (procession) mix with programmed spaces (ritual) creating experiential relationships between active and passive users. Along with performances, events, rehearsal and teaching spaces the programme extends to costume and stage set making as well as the making of stage boats which move up river to interact with the city, making the river part of the public space of the city and testing the boundaries/thresholds of inhabitation along the river edge. Engaging with the ideas raised in my essay, the design project aims to test the notions of mediation and threshold in the built environment at varying scales and intensities, from a person entering a space, to the building’s relationship with the city, and beyond to the city’s connection with its river. The bias towards form making and programmed ‘rooms’ which we move between as quickly as possible shifts to highlight the importance of the geography of the space between and the way in which we traverse it. In the inhabitation of, and protection from the surrounding elements, every opening (door, window, vent etc.), circulation space or enclosing envelope, everything which describes a point of mediation/transition in the built environment, takes on a significance beyond physical necessity, becoming social and psychological expressions.