Insurgent uses in transit architectures: actions as plan, trick, and feint

Abstract

The traffic condition is a common phenomenon for peripheral populations of the Metropolitan Region of Rio de Janeiro. By forming a 'compulsory collective space', mobility infrastructures have enormous political and social potential. Certain 'insurgent' practices of groups that use the 'architectural loopholes' of these infrastructures stimulate this potential. This article analyzes some cultural, political, and economic uses connected to transit infrastructures according to three ways of designing (plan, trick, and feint) to discuss how architecture and urban planning can combine to build less unequal realities. Commercial uses around the Pavuna subway station, and political and cultural uses of Cine Taquara (BRT), Viaduto de Realengo, and Viaduto Negrão de Lima (Madureira) are analyzed.

center-periphery relation; transit spaces; metropolitan mobility; insurgent uses; urban design