Threshold and transition
Threshold
housingschoolretailpublic building
It is the low part of the door that marks the passage from outside to inside. By extension it is any place of passage where one space begins and another ends.
What it solves
It stops rainwater and mud before they get into the house. Well thought out, it becomes a place to pause, greet or sit in the shade before going in.
Today
Design the threshold as a place and not as a line. A small eave, a wide step or a built-in bench turn the entrance into a place to be.
Common mistake
Leaving a high step or a sharp edge that makes people trip and blocks wheelchairs and strollers.
Tomorrow
With heavier rain the threshold will have to combine step-free access with continuous drainage grates. That way an older person, a wheelchair or a stroller can enter without stumbling.
Fact The United States accessibility standard limits new thresholds to half an inch high, about 13 millimeters, with a beveled edge.
Where it comes from
- 1Team 10 and Aldo van Eyck Netherlands, 1954 to 1959
Aldo van Eyck proposed the in-between space as the place where inside and outside stop being opposed and become twin phenomena. - 2Team 10 and the Smithsons United Kingdom and Netherlands, 1954 to 1968
Alison and Peter Smithson defended the value of the doorstep as a meeting place of daily life.
Masters
- Aldo van Eyck Amsterdam Municipal Orphanage, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1960
He fills the building with in-between spaces between the street, the courtyard and the children’s houses. He teaches how to design the passage between inside and outside as a place.
Appears in the routes
See also
Also in Threshold and transition
Diagrams and texts by LDB Arquitectura. They are shared under the CC BY 4.0 license, which allows them to be used and adapted with credit to the source.