Hennieke Velvis

Through the in-between

A transition between the private and shared place in collective living

In my research paper about privacy and community in collective living I researched two concepts of transitioning from private to shared and vice versa. The ‘canal lock’, a space with four walls that you transition through from the private to the shared place. The second concept is the Dutch ‘stoep’ (EN; stoop), where you transition from the private to the shared through a threshold.

I am looking for a way to implement the idea of a place for preparing and adjusting for the new situation without the four walls of a ‘lock’. I found out that the key lays in bringing two worlds together in the way Aldo van Eyck describes the in-between place by the story of the sailor who feels at home on the thin slice of land where sea and shore collide.

To bring this concept to life I work with a door that is the start of a series of movements that little by little reveal the shared place and bring the private and the shared places together so you can adjust and prepare accordingly.

This page was last updated on June 12, 2023