i am looking for a book that i'm sure exists but i can't really describe the topic exactly.
"a history of driveways"
an architectural history of how entranceways to houses, temples, palaces, etc. places that receive people are designed based on the prevailing technology and social needs.
like how in the bible they talk about just rolling up to the city gates and yelling at whoever was there because there were like only 50 guys and if you brought 10 of them up to the wall it was a big deal. the mythology of the long rural gravel driveway headed by pa with his shotgun as representation of the survivalist american patriarch. the need for the development of the U shaped driveway to manage high-status guests with a balance of ceremony and efficiency, particularly with the rise of cars, both the vehicle and the ability to gather more high-status people in a place more frequently.
that kind of thing. what would you call that
@jonny Not driveway-specific, but closely related: English Country House. Can't remember the author right now. It's about thresholds and spatial restrictions and how they're communicated. I tried a library catalogue search on title but "English country house" brings up too much, and it's worsened by the fuzzy searching that the front-desk librarians foist upon us in the name of "discovery" (and their patronising assumption that we're too ignorant to know what we're looking for). You might get there if you can click through to the serious search interfaces that tend to be increasingly hidden these days.
There are studies of Renaissance and early modern French palace architecture that do similar things, looking at the long lines of rooms and how you can get only as far along as your welcome allows.
"Liminal" was once a good keyword but it's been largely diverted by people who write about non-spatial boundaries.