Urban Thresholds

The city is understood most clearly at its thresholds.

Urban Thresholds studies how public and private life meet across the edges of Barcelona's streets and buildings. The series combines measured observation, hand drawing, mapping, and layered digital notation. Rather than documenting landmark architecture, it focuses on ordinary elements: a recessed doorway, an arcade used as shelter, a balcony extending domestic life, or a change in paving that signals shared territory. Together the drawings describe the city as a continuous field of negotiated boundaries.

Selected Imagery

Layered architectural drawing combining arcades, balconies, entrances and paving at a city street edge. — Fig. 01 — Composite study of street thresholds.

Urban diagram mapping gradual transitions from public streets to shared and private spaces. — Fig. 02 — Public-to-private threshold mapping.

Process

Observations were recorded through sketches, photographs, measurements, and written notes before being reconstructed as composite drawings. Each sheet combines plan, elevation, movement, and material traces rather than presenting a single conventional view.

Credits

Research, fieldwork, drawings, and editing — Lina Farrow. Fictional sample project.

Recognition

Student Urban Drawing Citation, 2022 — fictional sample recognition.