Designers seek to create environments that offer their inhabitants comfortable; desirable; meaningful or other qualified positive forms of experience. In some successful models; solutions involve a synthesis of space and person; such that they are mutually constitutive. Often as well; models involve an understanding of space; person and their union as dynamic. Models of space design which recognize such a dynamic relationship are said to view space as relational. In this paper; we claim space as relational. We also present the case that emergent in actualizing the relational idiom is the idea of threshold. Threshold is many things and complex. It symbolizes crossing but also pause; end but also beginning; a brief moment but also extended duration. In the paper; we explore the concept of threshold within physical; perceptual and rational frames. We attempt to foster a rich awareness of threshold; link it to a fertile; generative picture of public space; connect it to enrichment of inhabitants’ experience of the city and articulate roles for the designer. City and cultural spaces have pleasures embedded in the idea of threshold. Through analysis and intervention the designer can tap into those pleasures for the benefit of the user.
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