Within the threshold

Abstract

Local conditions along the New Silk Road are often largely impacted by the global ones operating in their area—one of such being the Republic of Panama, ever since the build of the Panama Canal. The canal offered a shortcut and connected the World over water, but paradoxically introduced divisions in other directions, it divided continents, the country, and ecosystems, ... This project explores the dual and opposing nature of connecting elements. The dichotomy in the meaning they hold is ascribed to the ever-changing factors, narratives, directions, and perspectives towards them, while the elements themselves persist as the only constant, as a reference. Despite being perceived as linear, once approached carefully, thresholds become spaces, spaces consisting of all the areas they divide. Cinta Costera 3 viaduct surrounds the two impoverished neighborhoods and the old core of Panama City: Casco Viejo, while offering connection to the residential and work areas for the wealthy. This connecting element simultaneously divides Casco Viejo from the wealthy areas and from the ocean. A seemingly linear border, a threshold to pass in order to reach the open ocean. The design aim is to dissolve the city into a beach. The intertidal landscape between the city and the threshold becomes a beach and becomes the end-goal itself. The city is reaching out to pass the threshold and achieve freedom=bathing. In this attempt, it encounters zones, thresholds, connections, and divisions, and experiences the revealed sensations of bathing, and spending time in and around water, and by the time the threshold is traversed, the aim was already experienced within.