Dan you mentioned during the crit a difference between Barriers and Boundaries:
I understand this to mean Barriers prevent access (either physically/visually/aurally) between areas while Boundaries announce the end of one area and the beginning of another but do not necessarily prevent access.
Would you or anyone else elaborate on boundaries and borders?
Hi Austin!
ReplyDeleteIts from some theory by Richard Sennett, who was just visiting the GSD for 2 weeks. He's a great urban theorist. The concept distinguishes between borders and boundaries. Here's a little excerpt from some of his text that can be found here: http://www.richardsennett.com/site/SENN/Templates/General2.aspx?pageid=16:
One spatial distinction which helps us engage actively with the changing context of time lies in the difference between borders and boundaries. This is an important distinction in the natural world. In natural ecologies, borders are the zones in a habitat where organisms become more inter-active, due to the meeting of different species or physical conditions. The boundary is a limit; a territory beyond a particular species does stray. So these are two different kinds of edge. For instance, in the border-edge where the shoreline of a lake meets solid land there is an active zone of exchange; here is where organisms find and feed off other organisms. The same is true of temperature layers within a lake: where layer meets layer defines the zone of the most intense biological activity. Whereas the boundary is a guarded territory, as established by prides of lions or packs of wolves.
Not surprisingly, it is at the borderline where the work of natural selection is the most intense; time is productive of evolutionary change in this edge condition. The boundary establishes closure through inactivity, by things petering out, not happening; to say that the edge-as-border is a more open condition means it is more full of events in time.
Hope this helps! I'm not 100% behind this theory, but here it is!
Aviva
This is fantastic, I've been reading this article and I think the concepts of open/closed systems can be applied at a mirco level to our site, especially to deal with addressing the varied edge conditions of our site. I'm developing a stronger sense that our borders need to be definite. I.e, that a border has a positive effect inside the site and to the community around but maintains a strong separation between the two.
ReplyDeleteSo from there, the most interesting question is what is the negative space between the two? I like the idea Sennet presents of a border being an area of the most activity/interactive. So a concrete wall as a border, for example, would be degenerative.
Is it possible to apply a programatic scheme to define a border? What type of program element would make sense along the parameters above?
My C1 studio last semester presented this concept of border versus boundary using the term "ecotone." That border between two conditions can be a rich place where the action happens. Wikipedia gives a nice definition of ecotone.
ReplyDeleteTess