Undergraduate Architectural Thesis: Articulating Threshold for Sense of Place
Thesis Statement
we are in or out, here or there. They do so through physical acts, framing views, and controlling light. Thresholds can be explicit, tangible elements of a building which we interact with and manipulate. Alternatively, implicit thresholds can signify inbetween spaces in a different manner --- through material changes, intangible elements, and psychological shifts. Thresholds give depth to the built environment, forming layers of space when moved through create our understanding and memory of a place.
Typical road-side architecture lacks depth, and thus lacks a sense a place. There is little variety in how space is delineated in the road-side built environment. Thin-skinned buildings sit flatly aside roads, comprising a majority of the American built-environment. Our engagement with a building, its context, and the relationship between the two is stifled by the proliferation of standard doors and windows. Transitioning between spaces is uncelebrated and abrupt. We’ve grown accustomed to moving immediately through
the envelope of a building; eyes, mind, and feet set on the product we may gain.
Situated between Jacksonville and St. Augustine, Florida along state road A1A, an ocean-side gas station provides an archetypal roadside site to investigate how articulating thresholds with different strategies can cultivate sense of place. Engaging with multiple layers of space in a variety of manners will alter the way in which we normally experience road-side architecture. In an addition to the gas station, a new seafood restaurant and wedding chapel serve as two functions whose intersections are test sites for threshold
investigations.
Site Photography
Drawings
Study Models
Final Model