MASTER THESIS

ABSTRACT

The purpose of the master thesis is to frame the transitional spaces in a social context, exploring its efective role in building neighbourship relations within a community.

A critical response is sought out, by architectural means, to adress the problem set concerning social interaction in the urban realm. The approach will be built up around the architecture role in the relantionship between physical proximity and social distance in urban areas, looking for space, in the conflict between privacy and community, for social interaction. According to this, architecture is to be adressed prevaling its antrophological dimension.

Thus, it is established as central theme of this work, public space and its gradation from the public to the private domain, assuming the transitional realm as central, both to the promotion of contact between people and the establishment of neighbourly relations in the community and to the preservation of the intimate space and integrity of the individual.

The focus is on the architectural devices that make the transition between the public and private spaces, indoor and outdoor, individual and collective, from the urban realm to the domestic frontier, and that, in their borderline position, are able to promote social interaction.