The architectural/urban threshold is a (physical/ mental) space encapsulating a change; it initiates movement or a change in a state of mind to another; affecting the experience of architectural/ urban space. The idea of threshold has been an operative metaphor across disciplines among which are architectural, urban, social and artistic studies. Historically, thresholds, in their various forms and definitions, played a significant role in both function and integral experience of architecture and urban realms.

Threshold is a space of transition from one state to another that could imply a sense of contingency. It is indeterminate and carries a sense of temporality. It derives from relations and interrelations between the built spaces. Its domain of presence spans over the experience of the sequence of movement through spaces of different architectural/ urban atmospheres, to leftover spaces or voids. Threshold is the vestibule of experience.

We have learned, through the demands of our contemporary societies, to obsessively or subconsciously seek for speed and efficiency. Our daily journeys between workspaces and homes are vestibules of mobility within which we barely even connect to our surrounding physical environment –being occupied with our abstracted virtual worlds. Instant connections and rapid movement are the intellect of the era and for many, slowness and contemplation that transitive spaces provide is considered a time sink. As a result, transitional spaces are losing their value and meaning by the over-emphasis on spaces that accommodate main functions in cities and buildings, or by being treated as service areas. Evidently, this also minimizes their scope of spatial experience.

This course thinks of the architectural/ urban threshold not only as a space of transition but also as a metaphor to encapsulate the experience derived from an individual’s ensemble of thinking, feeling and bodily memory. It attempts to raise students’ awareness of thresholds through readings that successfully capture the significance of the notion of transition.

In the course we read, visualize, analyze and discuss eight texts consisting of exemplary written pieces from architecture, literature and even poetry. The architectural texts represent the threshold through descriptions on physical transitions in built spaces, while the literary texts portray mind spaces or images that define a threshold as a physical or mental transition of a state to another. The criteria for choosing the texts has been their successful writing style for conveying meanings, stimulating imagination, and communicating their intentions in a meticulous and coherent manner. The visual essays, analytical readings and critical discussions on the selected texts are structured in weekly sessions of the elective course. However, the final elective week focuses on writing an individual text assignment that describes the experience of a threshold. Optionally, the text assignment can incorporate one illustration, image, or collage as a representative visualization for the text.

In each weekly session, the students are supposed to take turns in presenting a visual essay for the assigned text. The appointed student must also try to take the lead in engaging the members of the course in follow-up reflections on the allocated text of the session. The first three days of the final elective course week is designated for students’ individual writing and is assisted and tutored by the course leader. The last two days of this week include feedbacks on the written individual texts, provided by a native English speaker guest-crit. The objective of the assignment is to improve the writing skills of the students in articulating a thought/ narrating a subjective experience in an evocative and yet plain manner.

Alternatively, the course has the potential to include an excursion in Oslo with specific focuses on experiencing an architectural/ urban threshold. The visit demands for short text assignments on narrating the experience with required specific focuses. In the followed-up session after the excursion, these short writing explorations will be examined and collectively evaluated for choosing the most successful narrations. In the case of including the excursion, which will be decided upon at the start of the course in a poll, the text readings will consist of six texts instead of eight.