Arquitetura do medo: um estudo sobre os reflexos socioespaciais da violência urbana em frações dos bairros de Ponta Negra e Capim Macio, Natal/RN

Abstract

The increase in urban violence is an issue that shapes the current world scenario and has been heightened by social inequalities, economic development, State actions, urban infrastructure and the habitability conditions in each region. Due to fear and lack of security, people shut themselves up in “fortified enclaves”—for home, leisure and work— using defense and protection instruments linked to architecture itself, such as high walls, electric fences and surveillance cameras. This search for private security and the construction of barriers is a reality in almost all Brazilian cities, which creates a new landscape, generating socio-spatial segregation and a decrease in sociability. Faced with this problem, this thesis aims to understand the impacts of urban violence on the socio-spatial characteristics of Capim Macio and Ponta Negra neighborhoods in the city of Natal/RN, comparing fractions of those neighborhoods via the analyses of urban space, socio-spatial characteristics and dynamics through the resident’s perspective, by applying questionnaires and interviews, and by the identification of the “architecture of fear” elements in the areas in question. The research results show that urban violence and fear are the main reasons behind the transformation of the physical space in the midst of this dialectic, in which human actions and behavior are influenced by the physical-spatial environment in the same way that men modify the environment. In this sense, the thesis contributes to the planning and management of future interventions that would approach this dialectic both in the studied fractions and in other areas of the city.