Research Line in Theory and History of Design
Advisor: Maira Martins
Dissertation: The dimension of Mobility Infrastructure segregation: The case of Avenida Brasil
Date of defense: 11/02/2020
Abstract
It is common sense in the urban mobility, literature to address the positive
aspects of mobility infrastructures because of their ability to connect urban spaces.
In order to promote a critical debate about these elements, the dissertation aims
to point out the dimension of segregation on mobility infrastructures, exploring
two aspects: that of socio-spatial segregation, on a city and metropolis scale,
addressing the center-periphery dichotomy, and the segregation of the urban form,
on a neighborhood scale, either by the presence of scattered and fragmented urban
fabrics, as well as by new and different scales of buildings built around the mobility
infrastructures. Then, the research is based on the object of Avenida Brasil, an
important expressway built in the 1940s, which crosses the city of Rio de Janeiro
from one end to the other, serving as one of the structuring axes in the occupation
of the west zone. In its extension, there are several modes of occupations, related to
different dimensions of segregation. A comparative analysis, based on three distinct
occupational patterns of low-income housing and its surroundings, is ultimately
intended of to measure the impacts of segregation on stretches.