1. Swaziland College
of Technology
Sebabonkhe T. Masuku
12 Jan. 2016
Looking to the future
Faculty of Building And Civil Engineering
Architecture Department
Architectural Theory I- project 3:
terminology
Sebabonkhe Masuku
01.12.2015--19.01.2016
2. porosity
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Archispeak: An illustrated guide to architectural terms
Porosity is one of the key concepts in the urban experience discussed by Walter Benjamin when
describing the city characteristics, such as social, spatial and temporal organization. Using Naples as
the model, Benjamin saw this city as unplanned, chaotic conurbation in which spaces and buildings
meld and interpenetrate. Therefore, porosity refers to the absence of spatial boundaries and divisions
between phenomena, one thing permeating another, the merging of old and new, interior and exterior,
and the diffusion of public and private.
3. 3
Urban indeterminacy offers choice of movement, making navigation of the metropolitan
labyrinth and the chance of losing oneself – an adventure that is echoed by Will Alsop who,
writing in the catalogue accompanying the Japan Soane Museum exhibition of his work,
criticizes the predictability of the gridiron and applauds the unexpected and the attendant
ability to lose one’s way in the complexity of the porous city.
‘Permeability’, i.e. providing optional means of spatial penetration, is often used as a substitute
term for porosity,. In the writings of Steven Holl, the lateral penetration of a building becomes
‘horizontal porosity’.
porosity cntd…
4. One of a series of
provocative rendered
images that explores
the potential of
connection from inside
out and vice versa.
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5. 5
Proposed tower at 582-606 Collins Street, Melbourne designed by Zaha Hadid
Architects and PlusArchitecture.
8. threshold
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A threshold is a piece of wood or stone beneath a door or entrance, whether simple step or a grand
and highly articulated space or series of spaces, the threshold is an architectural element with deep
social and emotional significance, it is a transition zone that marks the passage between outside and
inside, the beginning of ´dwelling´ in the terms of Martin Heidegger. It is where one crosses the
boundary into a place cleared for settlement, where settlement ´begins its presencing´, According to
Heidegger, the threshold is a place in the most basic in that it is a highly defined ´location´. There is a
directional bias associated with the threshold namely that of moving from a less bounded to a more
private, contained space, an idea of entering. Accordingly, from the earliest human settlements to the
present, ritual and specific modes of behaviour have come to be associated with crossing the
threshold – removing one’s shoes or hat, paying respect to the protecting deities, exchanging
greetings with the host, and, more recently, submitting to security checks.
The physical form of threshold as entry place varies widely depending on the cultural setting. With few
exceptions, it is clearly defined and its conventions are well understood within a culture.
Archispeak: An illustrated guide to architectural terms
9. threshold cntd…
5
The greater the desire physical or psychological separation between inside and outside worlds,
generally the more elaborated and protracted the threshold transition. This is often true if seats of
religions, commercial and political power. For example, devices such as doors, gates, monumental
scale, elaboration of detail, the use of precious metals, symbols, and words conveying prestige and
power, ritual spaces, changes in direction, progression from low to high, and contrast between
character of inside and outside space, can be employed to emphasize the separation. A great deal of
psychological distance can be achieved even in a small space, as in the case of many urban dwellings
in Japan, where house interiors are traditionally away from the street. On the other hand, the
threshold can be very subtle, as Pierre von Miess points out in his Elements of Architecture (1990) in
relation with a house in Lansing, Michigan, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. There the transition from
the natural landscape to the house interior occurs through a sequence of small, hardly noticeable
changes. In the aggressive world of retail selling, thresholds are blurred in order to entice a potential
buyer to engage the merchandise.(PDS)
10. 10
“The floor or ground at the bottom of a doorway, considered as the entrance to a
building or
room”
-Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary
The limen is defined as the transitional threshold between two fixed states in cultural rites
of passage or between two dissimilar spaces in architecture.
-Liminal Space in Architecture: Threshold and Transition,
Patrick Troy Zimmerman
…
…
12. Vacant lots in the city center turned around into temporary play areas bordered by the old walls and
existing ramshackle buildings. Dijkstraat, Holland, Aldo Van Eyck,1954.
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13. Distorted DonutArchitecture
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Articulation of a threshold by
The recessed joint and change of
material: roughcast-concrete-marble;
change of element: floor-step; change of
meaning old-new and ‘end of journey’.
Carlo Scarpa, Museo Castelvecchio,
Verona, 1957-64.
14. • Threshold refers to the transition experienced from one
particular space or volume to another different area in
that moment.
• Architecturally, the threshold is felt when entering or
exiting a building at the exit point as the phenomena
becomes different from where you were then.
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…
15. THE END
THANK YOU ALL.
swaziland college of technology
architecture department
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