Condomínios públicos para idosos: o caso do “Cidade Madura” na Paraíba

Abstract

In response to the aging process of its population and as a strategy to meet the demand for homes meant for people aged 60 or over, Paraiba's Government is implementing, in several cities, closed public horizontal housing developments, exclusive for the elderly: the Cidade Madura Condominiums (CCM). Intended for people above 60 years and maximum salary range of three minimum wages, the CCMs are usually installed in the outskirts of medium or large cities. In this context, this thesis had as starting questions: Is this housing model fit for its target audience? Which impacts architectural/urban proposal represents in the life of the elderly residents? How its users/ residents see the program and the condominium in which they live? Provisionally answering these questions, the hypothesis of this paper supposes that, despite the guarantee of housing to low–income seniors, the public horizontal housing developments (such as CCM) have problems that can reflect in difficulties in the deployment of daily activities of the residents, causing them inconveniences that need to be circumvented. In light of that, the general objective of the study was to analyze the impacts that the typology adopted by the CCM / Paraíba has on the elderly residents in order to propose guidelines for future projects. To this end, the empirical activity had as spatial cut out the CCM of the cities of João Pessoa and Campina Grande, in Paraíba. Methodologically, in addition to bibliographic study and document analysis, the thesis resorted to empirical activity through case studies using a multimethod approach –confrontation of the researcher´s technical analysis (obtained by spatial syntax and survey) with the user´s point of view (through questionnaires and focus group). The research has shown that, although there are features of the CCMs considered positives by its users (especially the low cost regarding its social rent), there are also several problems associated with them (in particular: their location, their distance from the known part of the city and from the users' family, insecurity to stay in the CCMs, the dissociation between the architecture and the residents' needs, as well as the dimensioning of the units). In light of the evidence, it's recommended that the model isn't copied as observed, pointing out guidelines that would improve housing solutions for the elderly from different parameters.