I was invited to contribute to the most recent edition of Junk Jet, which was dedicated to fluxing architectures "for all kind of practical concepts and conceptual practices, for stable happenings and unstable thoughts." The issue is fantastic and jammed with a combination of fascinating proposals, whimsical speculation and many fine articles. The magazine is a savvy, chaotic mix of the best of zine-culture, the web/digital art scene and (perhaps) the tone/aesthetic of some editions of the Pamphlet Architecture series. My piece focused on airlocks – in fact and fiction. See also Mimi Zeiger and Enrique Ramirez's articles which have now been fed to their respective blogs. Support this great publication and buy Junk Jet N°3 here.

[David Bowman forces entry in 2001: A Space Odyssey]

Once you start thinking about kinetic architecture, the distinction between structure and vehicle becomes hazy and difficult to define. So while architecture might move or operate, space doesn’t. Space is static, the void within which architecture happens – that which is compartmentalized.

One of the most performative architectural assemblies ever devised is the airlock, a mechanism that permits passage between regions with different air pressures or gases. Airlocks provide a buffer zone between incompatible environments and are a perfect example of how architecture can function as a spatial interface.

Airlocks are extremely important to maintaining a habitable environment within spacecraft so it is not surprising that they have become a key site of negotiation and conflict in science fiction­—what happens in the airlock seldom stays in the airlock. This is an enclosure where we confront the otherness of deep space, not necessarily the "other" of an alien species but that of the postspatial void, a frictionless vacuum that is completely inhospitable to life as we know it. An exercise in precision-engineered xenophobia, the airlock is the threshold between architecture, technology and the unknown.

The following lexicon provides a quick overview of all things airlock.

Boyle’s Law: The inversely proportional relationship between the absolute pressure and volume of a gas if the temperature is kept constant in a control environment. This law guides gradual pressure transitions that minimize stress on air seals and bodies.

Diving Bell: A cable-suspended chamber that is lowered underwater to transport divers. This enclosure is lowered slowly into the water while oxygen is pumped into the volume from the surface. This oxygen and a slow descent provides air for divers to breathe and maintains air pressure within the space. Diving bells have been widely used for more than 2,000 years.

[Roger Wilco dies (again) in Space Quest: The Sarien Encounter]

Explosive Decompression: A sudden drop in pressure in a sealed system where the speed of decompression is faster than air can escape from the lungs. While explosive decompression can lead to lung trauma (and death) the phenomenon is often hyperbolized as Hollywood science whereby rapid depressurization leads to exploding heads, eyes and grotesque swelling (see Total Recall, Event Horizon and License to Kill).

Flight 243: A real-world example of explosive decompression that occurred on April 28, 1988. In this near-disaster the cabin of Aloha Airlines Flight 243 was blown open. While 65 individuals were injured there was only one fatality: flight attendant C.B. Lansing, who was blown out of the airplane.

Glovebox: A micro environment that operates similar to an airlock where objects in a sealed box with a separate atmosphere are manipulated by an outside user. These enclosures have three characteristics: they are airtight, partially transparent and equipped with gloves that maintain the volumetric seal. Gloveboxes are regularly used to facilitate working with hazardous materials.

[Airlock interface in Sunshine]

Interface Aesthetics: In speculative fiction, the emptiness of the airlock is almost always accentuated with a control panel that can modulate architecture and the environment. A fight or minor catastrophe is not complete without a carefully cropped technological fetish shot that frames interaction and registers a shift in the storyline.

"Open the pod bay door, HAL" – The definitive cinematic treatment of the airlock occurs within Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. In this scene the spacepod bound Dr. David Bowman is denied re-entry into the spaceship Discovery One by the rogue AI HAL 9000 and is forced to chance a dangerous manual entry. Bowman ignites the explosive bolts of his pod door and blasts himself into the airlock - without the benefit of a helmet. Danny Boyle pays (grim) homage to this scene in Sunshine.

Quest Joint Airlock: The main airlock for the International Space Station since July 2001, the Quest (pictured above) facilitates collaboration between Russian and American astronauts. Equipped with fixtures for various spacesuits and equipment, the enclosure provides a zone for congregation prior to a spacewalk­.

Spacing: favourite means of homicide or execution within science fiction where an unlucky individual is tossed out of an airlock into the indifferent vacuum of space. Notable examples include the climax of the first two films in the Alien franchise and the death of Hugo Drax in Moonraker. Spacing is to sci-fi as "walking the plank" is to nautical piracy and defenestration to architecture.

Voskhod 2: A Soviet space mission that took place on March 18, 1965 in which Alexey Leonov became the first human to execute a space walk. During the walk, Leonov’s suit inflated and stiffened and on returning to the Voskhod 3KD spacecraft he could not fit into the airlock. Miraculously, Leonov was able to release some of the pressure in his suit and squeeze back into the ship.