Under viaducts as urban challenge: interpreting residual areas in viaducts Alcântara Machado and Glicério

Author(s)

Victor Martins de Aguiar

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU/SBI)
• Defense date: 2017-04-18

Examining board members

Renato Cymbalista; Igor Guatelli; Anderson Kazuo Nakano

• Advisor: Renato Cymbalista

Abstract

The present study focuses on the residual areas under viaducts. Often seen by city councils and academic literature only as residual spaces, these areas have not been historically considered as resources suitable for public use. Nonetheless, as there is no such a thing as completely vacant land in the metropolis, the residual area bellow viaducts do show some use and occupations, even though non formal; different groups use such territories as places for gathering and other activities. By subverting their purported use (or non-use), they fill them with unexpected qualities. By analyzing uses and occupations in the areas bellow Alcântara Machado and Glicério viaducts in the city of São Paulo, this dissertation aims at demonstrating the complexity of these portions of the municipality territory which, for the very reason of being interstitial, became opportunities for spontaneous actions and projects developed by different social stakeholders. By introducing and maintaining initiatives in these \"baixios\" (as such spaces are called in Brazil) these social stakeholders were able to stablish public spaces on them. The academic literature has demonstrated that this kind of appropriation of common but non-used space in the city can generate a sense of community deriving from its management, provided it is performed in a collective manner. The present work analyzed such initiatives by confronting them with the concept of \"commons\" applied in recent studies about this subject in which spontaneous and self-12responsible action enabled the mobilization of such territories resources into urban occupations. The \"baixios\" where chosen for investigation as they have been historically occupied in as spontaneous fashion in São Paulo. For this reason, they have the potential to illuminate more recent processes of public space qualification and activation aiming at the common good. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 15/07169-6 - Lower viaducts as urban challenge:interpreting residual areas in viaducts Alcantara Machado and Glicerio
• Grantee: Victor Martins de Aguiar
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master