Gated Territories: Territorial Organisation and Control in the Architecture and Urban Design of Gated Communities in Brazil

Abstract

Contemporary cities are progressively developing enclosures that increase social exclusion. The expansion of gated communities with their fortification, social homogenisation, and privatisation compensatory functions plays a key role in this development. These functions offer compensation for cities’ insecurity, social fragmentation, and inefficient service provision. Yet, this compensation is problematic as there is a severe mismatch between the delivery and the perception of gated communities’ security and sociability: while safety and sociability are perceived as high, crime numbers and social fragmentation are similar to those in the open parts of the city. This research aims to understand the causes of this contradiction by reinterpreting traditional notions of gated communities and shed light on the complex mechanisms that foster their exclusionary and highly controlled spatial production. To achieve this aim the research uses territorial studies as analytical framework, which allow for an integrated examination of the multidimensional and multiscale spatial production that characterises gated communities. Although critical to advance the current understanding of these developments, territoriality is an area that still has minimal research in this specific subject. The research draws upon different theoretical approaches that focus on the territoriality of the built environment, particularly those of John Habraken and Mattias Kärrholm. Habraken’s approach informs the interpretation of the structure and materiality of sequences of territories of gated communities, focusing on the multiple modulations of the transition between private and public realms. Kärrholm’s approach, based on actor-network theory, allows for the assessment of the different combinations of objects, people, and rules used to control space and produce territorial sequences. This study deploys methods of comparative analysis to assess correlations between territorial structure and residents’ perceptions of safety and sociability in gated and non-gated neighbourhoods. It develops a toolset based on different parameters that measure territorial depth in their legal, perceptual, and material dimensions. The investigation focuses on processes of urban transformation in Brazil and compares two prevailing neighbourhood types: the gated loteamento fechado (enclosed subdivision) and the bairro privado (private neighbourhood). The research demonstrates that the loteamento fechado produces higher levels of perceived safety and sociability by changing traditional conditions of visual and physical integration between public and private spaces, and by implementing territorial marking and people’s practices in public spaces outside its gates.