URBAN FOLDS: AN ESSAY ON THE MANIFESTATION OF KINDNESS IN BETWEEN PLACES IN THE CITY OF MACEIÓ - AL
in between; urban friendliness; urban morphology; scales of urban planning and design; Maceio.
Based on the concept of "urban friendliness", introduced by Fontes (2011), which refers to a spatial attribute that manifests itself through connections and interactions between subjects and space, driven by the impact of temporary interventions in collective spaces, this research proposes the hypothesis that urban friendliness can also be manifested in everyday dynamics, through the so-called "in-between places". In this context, the in-between place is defined here as a landscape unit characterized by the breakdown of the dynamics of the urban fabric, encompassing not only its physical constitution, but also the social and temporal relations that determine its configuration. Based on a fundamentally empirical method, this research seeks to test the hypothesis presented in an experience context, adopting a qualitative approach to analyze aspects of urban morphology, considering two reference cases, at different scales (local and urban), within the context of the city of Maceió-AL. Therefore, the general objective of this work is to recognize and reveal the in-between places as potential territories for the manifestation of urban friendliness in the everyday dimension. Considering the opposite perspective to the hegemonic model of thinking and making the city, it is argued that if the spheres of planning and urban design considered in-between places as a starting point for defining principles and rules that underlie the norms of territorial development, we would have cities more kind.