Da cidade ao shopping e vice-versa?: configuração espacial, movimento e usos do espaço em shopping centers e seus entornos

Abstract

This dissertation addresses relationships concerning architectural form and use of space, with a focus on the interaction of commercial establishments of the shopping center type (herein referred as SC) and the city that contains them. Three SCs and their respective surroundings were investigated through a morphological perspective based on the theory of the Social Logic of Space (HILLIER; HANSON, 1984; HILLIER, 2007 [1996]). The studied shopping centers are located in the North, East and South Administrative Regions of Natal (capital city of the State of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil) in highly accesible areas, considering origin-destination and shortest path routes; they have different target audiences and reputations, one catering for lower incomes (SC01), one of greater mixture between social classes (SC02) and one for a more affluent audience (SC03). Stemming from the assumption of an interweaving between the exterior (city) and interior (building), the hypothesis adopted was that patterns of pedestrian movement and use of space inside the SCs (a private space of collective use), may be linked to aspects of the urban fabric (a public space), and that the exterior-interior continuity is modeled by the space configuration properties of the urban fabric, by the interfaces between buildings and public space and by the way in which the internal spaces of these buildings are organized/configured. The aim was to verify if and in what ways the city and the shopping center are related, taking into consideration aspects of the form and use of space. For that, the study addressed SCs as: a) artifacts embedded in urban space, focusing on the spatial accessibility and patterns of pedestrian movement in their surroundings, and on the shape of the built environment around them; b) artifacts in themselves, isolated from the city, with their own socio-spatial logic, focusing on which semantic aspects are attributed to these SCs, the way in which stores are spread in them, the spatial configuration and patterns of pedestrian movement within the building; and c) by the possibilities of interweaving the spatial mesh of SCs with the urban mesh, with a focus on the spatial configuration and the movement of pedestrians inside those buildings. Results showed: a) the existence of distinct modes of use of public space in the surroundings of each SC, which seems to be mediated by their spatial configuration and the shape of the built environment, with movement patterns effected to a greater or lesser extent according to the sociocultural aspects of those who inhabit these areas; b) the existence of different spatial arrangements within the buildings, capable of modeling pedestrian movement, each with their own logic of space use; and c) two strongly contrasting cases, one in which the dual logic of space use within the isolated building and that found in when the meshes are stiched together overlap, indicating high spatial tuning between SC and the public sphere, and another in which movement and spatial structure (the seam attaching building and town considered) are little related or somewhat opposite in behavior. In general, it was here evident that the spatial meshes of shopping centers, added to the city, do not contribute to increasing the accessibility of the system, having caused the opposite effect in some situations, particularly at local scales; however, the building did benefit from that seam, as shown in the analysis of one of the cases, channeling accessibility and movement from the outside into the building.