Liminal Spaces: unsettling or transformational?

Book review by Yixin Han 

A few months ago, I found myself captivated by the emergence of liminal spaces as an internet aesthetic. On TikTok and other platforms, I scroll past images of deserted malls, school corridors after hours, playgrounds under the glow of streetlights, and long, empty hallways. At first, I could not quite explain why they struck me so deeply. These spaces are familiar, yet somehow estranged, and they carry with them an atmosphere of quiet unease. When I look at them, I often feel as if I am brushing against a forgotten memory, something I recognize but cannot quite place, filtered through an uncanny sense of emptiness and abandonment.

Figure 1: The backrooms. (Source: Huuxloc, 2022)

What fascinates me about this cultural trend is that it makes liminality feel both personal and collective. Liminality is usually understood as a threshold, a passage between states or places. It is the feeling of being caught in-between, suspended in a moment that is neither here nor there. It is not about the physical qualities of a deserted mall or an unlit staircase, but about the atmosphere that arises in that space—the way memory, nostalgia, and displacement settle into the void. I think of the times I have lingered in a train station late at night, or walked through a park at dusk, and felt that same mix of comfort and estrangement. These moments remind me that places are not just containers of activity, but emotional landscapes where transitions like these leave their trace.

This idea connects with what I have encountered in Unleashed: Harnessing the Power of Liminal Space (2021) by Rick and Amy Simmons. The book describes liminality as a time of discontinuity and change, when the ordinary is suspended and transformation becomes possible. I recognize this not only in the spaces we design, but also in the design process itself. Working on a project often feels like being in a liminal state: between analysis and design, between uncertainty and resolution, between cycles of iteration. The sketches, models, and drafts are like transitional spaces- ambiguous, sometimes disorienting, but also full of potential. As Rick and Amy Simmons explain, “When you recognize that there’s power in the in-between—that discontinuity creates an openness to transformation—you can do something about it. You have the opportunity to build a new reality rather than simply struggle to return to normal.” This resonates with my own experience: it is often in those uncertain moments, when ideas remain unsettled, that the most meaningful change begins to take shape.

Figure 2: Jared Pike: A descent into the Dream Pools. (Source: Jared Pike, 2020)

This perspective can shift how we think about landscape architecture. Thresholds, edges, and in-between environments are one of the most interesting spaces that we can engage with in design: the shoreline where land meets water, where the city meets the country, the forgotten piece of land that sits between abandonment and renewal. Often, these are treated as routes to pass through or boundaries to manage. But the cultural fascination with liminal spaces suggests that they can be more than that. They can be spaces in a transitional state where possibilities open up past elements are reinterpreted. For me, this realization opens up the possibility of designing landscapes that do not only guide activities or movement, but also allow for reflection, anticipation, or even disorientation - moments where the familiar slips into the unfamiliar, and something deeper is felt.

For me, the internet’s fascination with liminal aesthetics is more than a passing trend. It reflects something fundamental about how we experience and create spaces. The unsettling hallway or empty playground is not just an eerie image. It is a reminder that the in-between carries meaning. In landscape architecture, both the places we design and the process of designing them are shaped by thresholds, by passages from one state to another. Learning to dwell in these moments—of memory, estrangement, uncertainty—may help us design landscapes that speak not only to function, but also to the deeper, often unspoken dimensions of human experience.

Unleashed: Harnessing the Power of Liminal Space

July 20, 2021

232 pages