Maid's rooms: the tradition in the apartments buildings of Farol district in Maceió, AL

Abstract

The presence of domestic employees in high and middle income Brazilian households is a cultural factor. With the increasing verticalisation process, apartment buildings included the maid's quarters in the service area, with a separate entrance. The aim of the present article is to trace a history of maids’ quarters in high-rise apartment buildings built in the traditional neighbourhood of Farol (ZR 7 e ZR8) in the city of Maceió/AL, from 1960 to 2010. The database used were the surveys carried out by gEPA/FAU/UFAL. It was observed that, in the 1960s and 1970s, all the apartments in the neighbourhood were dependent on maids; only in the 1980s did the first apartment building with a reversible maid’s dormitory appear. In the 1990s, maids’ quarters remained in the typologies of 3 and 4 bedroom apartments and only during the 2000s did the first apartments without maids’ quarters appear. The study concluded that the presence of maids’ rooms prevailed in the supply of apartments produced in the five decades analysed, and that the changes introduced by the 1988 labour legislation did not alter the offer of the real estate market for higher income users.

Keywords:
Maid's room; Multifamily buildings; Reversible dormitory; Apartment typologies