DoorScape—The Space Beyond the Threshold

The applications for the first edition of DoorScape, the international contest that proposed a consideration on the entrance space, conceived by Oikos Venezia and the Querini Stampalia Foundation based in Venice, could be submitted until last January. The contest, which also involves Adler, Iseo and Laminam as partner companies, was created to value the entrance space in its many connections, meanings and functions, thus initiating a hitherto unprecedented meditation in this area of research.

The jury featured different skills and sensitivities so that the contest projects were evaluated from various aspects. It included AMDL CIRCLE and architect Michele De Lucchi as its president, Donatella Calabi, urban historian; Alessandra Chemollo, photographer; Emanuele Coccia, philosopher; Luciano Giubbilei, landscape and garden designer; and Eugenia Morpurgo, research designer.

The ten selected projects will be exhibited at the DoorScape—The Space Beyond the Threshold exhibition at the Querini Stampalia Foundation in Venice in the spaces created by Carlo Scarpa, from May 18 to November 26, 2023, during the 18th International Architecture Exhibition (Architecture Biennale).

The selected projects are: The Portal by Setion Branko, The Cut by Matheus Cartocci, The Garden of Utopia by Emanuele Cipolla, Threshold, from Sign to Place by Filippo Garau, Prélude by Isabelle Gomez, Viride by Anna Loggia and Alice Fantino, Instrument Door by Sara Simoska, The threshold through the labyrinth by Maria Grazia Spirito, Hypostyle by Victor Catalin Tanasa, and The Threshold as a Landing Place by Antonella Trusgnach.

The Jury president Michele De Lucchi, along with his firm AMDL CIRCLE, curator of the exhibition at the Querini Stampalia Foundation, said:

“We are at the door, at the place that filters the encounter between the inside and the outside. It is a boundary, a passage through two areas that right there combine and wrap around each other. The theme brings together a psychoanalytic and architectural concept at the same time. Traditionally, the boundary in architecture is a sharp line you bump into, where something else begins. Instead, if it were an area in which things coming from one side and the other somewhat overlapped, it would give rise to a shared territory that belongs neither to one nor to the other side, and that is precisely why it could become the place of encounter, where the limits of individual freedoms open welcomingly. Intense, compelling spaces of intersecting individuality.”

DoorScape is a contest that is not aimed exclusively at the world of designers, but intends to open up a broader meditation than the exclusively technical approach. There were 150 submitted projects. Numerous architectural firms were involved in the participation, but the presence of projects created by designers, students, surveyors and artists was also substantial. 30% of the participants are foreign residents: Albania, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iran, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Philippines, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States.

The winner will be announced in Venice on May 17 at the opening of the exhibition and will receive a money prize of 10,000 EUR.