Work

Santa Marta Urban Grammar: Unraveling the spontaneous occupation of Brazilian informal settlements

Year: 2020

Type: article

Abstract: The World experiences a significant growth in population coupled with fast urbanization processes particularly in the Southern hemisphere, which puts an enormous pressure on cities, giving rise to numerous social, infrastructural, ecological, and urban problems. In this context, the formal sector is often unable to provide adequate housing for this growing population who resorts to self-help processes that lead to informal settlements. This paper focuses on the development of an analytical shape grammar for Santa Marta, the iconic settlement used as a critical case study, whose rules describe the generation of the self-constructed urban fabric. The methodology includes an analysis of the built shape and the physical urban relations. The resulting model is a shape grammar that recreates the urban fabric of Santa Marta. Future work includes the evaluation of the settlement’s urban space and the corresponding transformation of the analytic grammar to generate a synthetic grammar for planning new housing settlements.

Source: Environment and Planning B Urban Analytics and City Science

DOI: 10.1177/2399808319897625

Authors: Debora Verniz, José P Duarte

Institution: Pennsylvania State University

Language: English

Topic: Urban Design and Spatial Analysis

Subfield: Building and Construction

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Sustainable cities and communities

Open Access status: green

Funder: Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico