Farol do Potengi: incorporando atividades e usos ao Edifício Ducal, em Natal/RN

Abstract

This final work consists of a Retrofit proposal for the Ducal Building, located in the Cidade Alta, in Natal,RN - Brazil, consisting of a technical report documents relating to an architectural project. Because it is a modernist building - designed and built in the 1970s, when regulations were not very specific and judicious - the building with 19 floors, designed to be the largest and most luxurious hotel in the city, showed little potential for adaptability to the conditions imposed by time, whether due to the emptying of the center or the restrictions imposed by the updating of regulations. With an obsolete structure and installations, it is now partially banned and in disuse, as a result of technical recommendations issued by various competent bodies such as the Fire Department, the Public Ministry, among others, in view of its non-compliance with current legislation. This project aims to bring together living spaces, leisure and shared services in a single building, aimed at different family profiles, as well as a gallery of shops, coworking and offices, configuring a mixed-use building, a typology that, together with the Retrofit, has been gaining strength in Brazil in recent years. The intervention proposal aims at the incorporation of new uses and functions to the existing building and, consequently, to its insertion area, focusing mainly on aspects of accessibility, safety and comfort, also worrying about the dialogue between the building and the street and the various possible visual connections to the Potengi River and the Historic Center of the capital. It was mainly based on the design process developed by Lawson (2011), with the contribution of other authors compiled in the work of Kowaltowski et al. (2011), obtaining as a result the resolution of the listed problems and, finally, a building capable of covering current demands, of the most diverse, with shape and aesthetics fully respecting the preexisting, taking advantage of the built potential and the already existing and consolidated infrastructure in that region, aiming at the reactivation of urbanity and local vitality. It is believed that, finally, the work reached the previously established objectives, contributing significantly to the discussion of the theme, mainly, in what consists of treating modernist buildings as an integral part of the city's historical collection and also regarding the need to propose uses to these buildings consistent with the local and current reality.