Liminals / Appendix

LLiminal spaces represent identity-less spaces, unavoidable leftovers that only on a surface level can be considered as non-meaningful but that are, indeed, extremely important for the proper function and the look of the whole urban system.

The parallelism with vestigial organs, such as the appendix, is particularly interesting here because of the identification of liminal spaces as hidden features but with potential troublemaking powers. If not properly declined with an understandable meaning and a pleasing form, liminal spaces could elapse into an inflammation process that could potentially spoil their surroundings.

In this sense, a pop-like, playful interpretation of their formal expression, can lead liminal spaces to become strong discontinuities of the public space with a cool attraction potential. Nowadays, is plenty of examples where “guerrilla” urban design turned dead liminals into flourishing special infills that provide a high-quality experience in a tiny range of space.

LLiminals are standby moments, where the public space seems to stay between transitions and new identities.

Etymologically, liminality comes from the Latin “limen - minis,” which literally means threshold. Conceptually, then, liminal has the meaning of “boundary,” of the “just before,” evoking the concept of preparing for a passage. In this sense, liminal spaces are the vestigial organs of the city. As translated from the Latin word “vestigia,” vestiges are remnants of evolutionary history - “footprints” or “tracks.”

Therefore, there is a need to rethink margins, undefined areas, enclosed in the fullness of the built-up, as they are an important resource for the project, as long as they are the subject of a reconsideration that is able to capture and enhance their potential. There is no more space available to build again and again. We are asked to work in between, along the edge lines, in the vacant areas, at the margins of spaces that are barely or not recognizable. Liminal space then becomes material for composition, an element that can finally make its transition to a new identity.

Liminal space examples could be elements like sidewalks, traffic islands, crosswalks, multipurpose areas, and so on. They are spaces that live at the frontier of different identities.

Pushing it to an extreme, we could even say that due to the ease with which they can be flipped into something new, they can act as real identity-makers, potentially for entire neighborhoods.

All species possess traits or organs that have lost all or most of their original function through evolution. Although they often appear functionless, a vestigial structure may develop new features. In this view, the unresolved spaces seem to be the “hidden organs” of the city-organism like our appendix, a remnant of an ancestral part of the intestine.

TThey are unaccounted for in city plans. Unclassified, unmapped, and undervalued. The lack of design intention, however, does not necessarily mean a lack of use.

They can act as shortcuts for pedestrians and soft mobility users, who are willing to take the off-route path to shorten travel distances. If the morphology allows, liminal spaces can also act as nodes in the city, points of contact between multiple users.

The shape of the liminal space can allow and even encourage lingering. This carries a social weight whereby the particular use of the space can have a positive or negative impact on local communities.

In fact, liminal spaces can become very active spaces from a mobility perspective if they provide better alternative connections between different points of interest in the city than those formally designated for circulation.

To follow the analogy of the appendix, liminal spaces are not considered to have a place in the system. However, liminal spaces may act as a reservoir for public space activity when the formal network is overloaded. They act as a buffer system that supports mobility in the city, even if that network goes largely unnoticed for the majority of its active life.