For me architecture touches on so much of what it means to be human – it touches on society, on politics, on culture. And we need to negotiate all of those thresholds in order to design.
In this video for CNN Style, architect Amanda Levete, founder of London-based practice AL_A, discusses the importance of identifying and creating thresholds in design, in both the literal and abstract definitions of the term. Working at a wide variety of scales, AL_A strives to react to larger societal issues in their designs, creating points where perceptions and emotions can transform.
“Architecture at its most distinctive is the boundary between the built form and where it begins and where it stops. In every piece of architecture, in every building, there are metaphors for thresholds – there are portals, there are archways, there are doors – and those moments signify the moment at which things can change.”
Levete further explores the idea of the threshold as guest-editor of CNN Style, commissioning pieces from artist Cristina Iglesias, former British MP David Miliband and novelist Olivia Sudjic on topics ranging from sculpture to refugee rights to the real versus the virtual. Read those articles as well as a piece by Levete on “celebrating what unites us,” here.
Via CNN Style.
