Overview

01 INTRODUCTION TRANSITIONAL SPACES

1.1 Overview

Every day we cross several spatial boundaries, moving from one zone to the next, living in liminality. They are anthropological invariants found in every culture and every era. Like the notions of limits and borders, they express one of humanity’s fundamental relations to space (Sensual City Studio 2018).

Liminal spaces, also known as thresholds or transitional spaces, have been a staple part of Emirati culture since their inception in the 1960s. Most of their vernacular architecture consisted of houses of mud or coral built around an open central courtyard, a prototypical transitional space layered with additional series of transitional spaces ranging from narrow alleyways known as sikkas to shaded colonnades known as liwan (Foruzanmehr 2017). Figure 1.1 illustrates these transition sequences through spatial delimitations and the body of the liminal spaces. They were designed to provide maximum privacy, protection from strangers, and adaptation to climatic conditions, enhancing the comfort levels of the surrounding spaces.

However, since the discovery of oil more than thirty years ago, Sharjah has undergone a profound transformation, trading the modest vernacular homes with contemporary glazed construction, ousting the layers of transitional spaces that thermally segregate the indoors, and the outdoors. Moreover, the ever-growing dependence on mechanical cooling systems and air conditioning is making matters worse, acclimatizing indoor comfort

Figure 1.1 Transition sequences through spatial delimitations (A) and the body of threshold spaces (B) (Source: author)