Threshold Spaces: Keeping the City Alive

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In the recent months of the pandemic and the lockdown, the streets became empty with no schools, malls and many other public spaces being closed. Under the compulsion of not being able to leave our homes or to reduce going out, we resorted to using spaces that fall under the periphery of our homes or neighbourhood but also provides us access to the outside or the public world, the 'threshold spaces'. Spaces like our balconies, terraces, front yards, smaller informal gathering spaces, sidewalks and street edges were the only active spaces.

In the apartment block level, we can see balconies take up a prominent role from interacting with neighbours to clapping in appreciation. We've also seen people use their terraces to compensate for their inability to use public spaces or take up new hobbies in the apartment level. The front yard of houses that seemed like public places with vendors occupying the space in front of hundreds of eyes on them now feels like a perfect place to catch up with neighbours without anything holding us back. Zooming out a little more, we can see how certain spots have gained popularity as pause points in the morning walk or catching up with one or two more people without overcrowding to the street edges that has people lined up in queues to get inside the grocery store.


Sneha Ramachandran



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