Recreating routes: studying informal paths in Cidade Satelite housing estate, Natal, Brazil

Abstract

This paper investigates modifications produced by automobile driving dwellers and visitors to the route system of Cidade Satelite housing estate in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. Founded on the premise that the space configuration is in itself capable of stimulating or intervention inhibiting movement and that the nature of the generated movement is a crucial factor for the appearance and maintenance of certain uses, the study applies line analysis, to evaluate the effects of the adjustments performed. Relations between the global and the local configuration are examined for the designed, built and actual versions of the settlement, through the development of linear representation. By contrasting design proposal, actual construction and residents’ action, important issues concerning intention, production and reality that amalgamate in the studied object some strategies adopted by users to overcome the effects of a plan designed under the guidance of the rationalist urbanism proposed in the Carte d’Athenes and in the image of the Plano Piloto in Brasilia are identified and exposed. Through continuous subtle interventions, which the study seeks to demonstrate, users managed to break through space barriers and create "informal roads" to overcome some of the strong segregating effects generated by the original - planned and built - structures.