Beginnings

On Entrances, Transitions and Shared Spaces.

Jan 31, 2022

We begin, like one often does, at an entrance. Poetic, yeah?

But, what even is an entrance?

To say that it is the start of a place sounds simplistic. In a house, for instance, one might call the main door the entrance. The logic is simple- the door separates the inside from the outside, the private from the public, and is the point at which we move from one to another.

But is that really where the home begins? Is space so clear-cut and separate? For instance, what would one call the front of the door, where rangolis and lamps appear every Diwali? How do you classify the verandah where you go to ‘sit outside’ in your own home? At what point on the road, on the walk back home late at night, do you start feeling safe, thinking “I am home now, all is well.” ?

Entrances are as much a place in themselves as they are a division. They are the greys between two spaces, allowing us to both occupy and be dualities at the same time.

I remember the houses of my grandparents, with their verandahs and front yards, small in size but with a nice filler between the ‘inside’ inside and the outdoors. The entrance was layered; a short wall- barely 3ft high- separated the street from the ‘plot’. Then came 1.5 metres of kota stone with my grandfather’s garden on the edges, followed by the porch- a little square block that we used for anything, from drying clothes, to entertaining guests, to watching the road for the ice-cream cart. The porch opened into the living room, but the door between them was seldom closed. It was always ajar, welcoming people- and their shouts and hollers- into the house. It was a little bit of the inside, and a little bit of the outside, and all of the neither and both.

When someone said “Daaraat basu chal” (“Let’s sit at the entrance”), it meant anything from sitting by the gate, on the porch, or under the actual door frame, (~head resting on the frame, cousins staggered on the stairs). It was public enough that people passing by could wave and chat, stop by for gossip, or come in for a quick cup of chai.

Every house on the street was similar-ish; late evenings saw a bunch of people sitting in their front yards or walking over to others’, food and sundry being passed over walls, kids learning to garden from the old uncle who lived alone down the lane. Anyone could choose to be a part of any household on the street- at their chosen level of comfort- a function of the way the street and our houses were designed.

Perhaps I remember- and miss- this more because of the last two years. I live far from family now, and the pandemic has made the distance feel even farther away. Lives in the apartment I live in today are abrupt; narrow corridors and unmarked doors (door decorations are considered fire hazards) strip every house of any individuality. The absence of any schedule means no one sees anybody anymore - the only conversations I share are in the elevator, awkward and unfamiliar.

Sure, the suburban street has its problems and the apartment has its beauty- and perhaps I sound like a grumbly old goat complaining about apartments- so be it. But two years shut inside four walls has revealed how elemental the need for company- even just the sight of a face different than our own- is. And apartments like mine, which lack shared spaces create lives unconnected and unseen by others. Privacy- when not in our control- is prison.

Because of course the people who next to my grandparents weren’t all always friendly. And of course the people who live next to me now aren’t all loners. But the design of a space persuades us to live a certain way, it dictates norms of social behaviour. It is deemed much more acceptable to wave at a random person whom you happen to see than it is to knock on the door of a stranger for small talk.

My apartment does have designated social spaces- a lawn on the seventh floor, out of everybody’s way. But I’ve never met anybody sitting there. All my interactions- if any- have happened in the elevator, because it is the shared space most frequently inhabited by people going about their daily lives. And because humans naturally exist and observe at eye-level, a horizontal plane of common space offers greater chance of crossing paths than a vertical one.

Both journeys do the same job of getting people home, but only one of them offers the chance to become something more, to allow something greater than precise functionality. Getting the job done is never the goal- it is to get it done while creating delight in the user. A delightful entrance is one that is not just the leftover space between two zones, but a place in its own right.