Se essa praça fosse minha, eu mandava, eu mandava ocupar: entre permanências e mudanças nas praças de Campina Grande-PB em suas revitalizações (2013 a 2017)

Abstract

The town square is an important urban space where social, cultural, religious, political and economic exchanges are carried out by the population. This fact requires attention of the public policies in the urban space field when it comes to its conceptual and architectural conception, so that interactions are possible in a more appropriate way. Thus, this research aims to analyze, the dynamics of four revitalized squares in the city of Campina Grande-PB, which are: Treze de Maio square, Cascudo square, Francisco Pinto square and Bandeira square. This research is based on the following question: do the revitalization of the squares of Campina Grande present conditions that meet the needs of the population, especially in the contemporary forms of use of these spaces? The relevance of this research lies in thinking about the relationships of these spaces with the users' interface, local merchants and managers, based on implanted revitalizations, being important the integration factor in the process of appropriation by the citizens of the public urban spaces in the cities. Among the methodological instruments used, there was the field research with direct observation, as well as the accomplishment of semi- structured interviews with the users of the squares, merchants, residents of the immediate environment and the public managers, like the city Mayor, public managers and architects who directly worked on those renovations. Photo images were also used as resource to spot relevant urban dynamics, space modifications and also some resilient features on the use and appropriation of those areas. To achieve this goal, it was necessary to identify the dynamics of use, appropriations and territorializations of the squares and their environments, as well as characterize users after revitalization. The perception of local population, merchants, managers and technicians were also analyzed, regarding the revitalization of the squares. This is a qualitative research and as a result, it was identified that the revitalizations of squares in peripheral neighborhoods allowed the return of various types of activities related to leisure, commerce and sports practice. This has brought new users and contemporary elements of renovation, such as seat coverings, floor coverings, gardening and the new lighting system in Bandeira square, that corroborate with the dynamics of existing uses in the square. It was also noticed that at night, after the installation of the new lighting system, the territorializations and types of uses of Bandeira square increased.