Use and appropriation as the everyday design of public space in the Bexiga Neighbourhood (são paulo) (original) (raw)
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Culture, Temporary Uses and Unusual Spaces in Rio de Janeiro
Third International Conference of Young Urban Researchers, 2018
The city of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) has various socially and historically marginalized regions lacking cultural and leisure facilities. Within its context of immense social inequalities, many of its urban voids and formerly degraded areas have been planned in line with the global trend of spectacular architectural and urban projects in vogue since the 1980s. Like in the USA or Eastern Europe, these projects are concentrated in regions perceived as strategic to the real estate market and/or cultural tourism, disregarding the places where the demands and needs are latent, such as the favelas (local slums) and the peripheral lower-class neighborhoods. It is in these places, relegated by the public policies and the private capital, that we have observed new ways of thinking and occupying the urban space. We speak of improvised, often temporary actions that represent alternatives to the more formal enterprises that seek mainly the creation of salable urban images. These initiatives usually emerge from collectives of artists or associations of younger people seen as (sub)cultural groups, who carry on cultural interventions in the existing "gaps" of the public space – underneath viaducts, in hidden alleys, or even in abandoned/empty sites. Examples of these interventions are diverse: blind girdles or building walls turned into movie screens and open-air cinemas; former dumpsites in turned into urban parks with award winning design; concrete slabs turned into theater stages; sites of demolition and eviction turned into resistance museums and so on. In Rio de Janeiro, these interventions are rarely the result of traditional urban projects and often represent bottom-up solutions that reflect the need of the inhabitants of poorer areas to transgress beyond the idea of scarcity surrounding them and focus on the notion of potency in places still unexplored. These actors are able to see opportunities and possibilities where others cannot in a tactical manner. Their diverse means of appropriating certain hidden places through art and culture also generate a transformation in the uses of spaces, which is representative of the contemporary era where functions are no longer strictly separated, but mixed. Ergo, in today’s reality, the road infrastructure of a peripheral neighborhood can become a temporary cultural center and a bicycle can become an itinerary library in a favela, breaking the strict division of key functions imposed by the strong modernist inheritance still so strong in Brazil, as well as in other countries. In our research, we refer to these examples of fluid appropriation and transformation of uses as “unusual spaces” (“espaços insólitos” in Portuguese). We propose to present this new object of study at this conference through mappings and reflections based upon the theoretical works of authors such as Michel de Certeau (about strategy and tactics), Milton Santos (about space-time relations), Franck & Stevens (about loose spaces), amongst others.
The deterritorialization of the public sphere and the emerging virtual ‘public spaces’ of the network society are matched by a growing erosion of collective life in traditional public spaces and urban places. Nevertheless, and concurrently with this novel city of fluxes, a few central urban areas endure as remarkable referential spaces of the traditional city of places. Drawing on the ongoing discussion of the Creative City, this paper approaches the theme of urban creativity by focusing on the binomial public space/public sphere, and claims that public space’s morphology, associated with the concentration of private spaces of public access, are decisive factors towards the vitality and creativity of urban territories. A comparative study examines the character and dynamics of three central urban precincts, informally known as ‘creative neighbourhoods’ or ‘cultural quarters:’ Vila Gracia, Barcelona (Spain); Bairro Alto, Lisbon (Portugal); Vila Madalena, São Paulo (Brazil). Operating like islands within the three cities, these neighbourhoods comprise an uncommon number of creative activities and artistic communities that have favoured the emergence of distinctive urban subcultures and alternative ways of life. The mix of local residents and outside visitors is heterogeneous and the confrontation between ‘alternative’ and ‘conventional’ is constantly negotiated on the streets of these popular urban areas. A survey of both the neighbourhoods’ public spaces, and of the networks of private spaces that are accessible to the public, displays commonalities that help explain their resilience as spatial/cultural references, as well as their ability to remain compelling places of collective interaction on a rapidly changing urban landscape. Concurrently, interviewed local key-agents uncover a number of specific features that contribute to the neighbourhoods’ popularity and vitality. With this paper I expect to contribute to the understanding of urbanism as a powerful shaper of urban life, and as a facilitator (or not) of the coexistence of diverse lifestyles in a shared territory.
IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science
The public space in Europe has been subjected to the major revitalizations in attempt to lifting the socio-economic value of the city centre as well as Avenida dos Aliados. In the urban planning concepts the interventions to achieve public space as medium has an specific terminology which is “ sense of place”. It is a design concepts for a place to ensure that every public space able to have identity and a distinctive character to the area and igniting the interactions among the people. Using ethnography as a method, This study give insights to the the definition of the public space according to the people perceptions, comparison of the quality of an Avenida dos Aliados as a public space after the revitalization and also highlighting what nowaday’s society expected for a public space in Avenida dos Aliados. In order to reclaimed the public space, the society highlighting there is need to include art components (like local artist and creative ornaments), historical information about ...