Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: RENATO NASCIMENTO GOMES

Potengi Lighthouse: Incorporating Activities and Uses to the Ducal Building, in Natal/RN

Modernism; Retrofit; Mixed Use; Urbanity

The work consists of a Retrofit proposal for the Edifício Ducal, building located in the Cidade Alta, in Natal/RN. As it is a vertical modernist building, designed and built in the 1970s, in which the regulations were not very specific and judicious, the 19 steps,  designed to be the largest and most luxurious hotel in the city, showed little potential. of adaptability to the conditions imposed by time and by the current law, with obsolete structure and facilities and being currently interdicted (partially) and in disuse, based on technical recommendations issued by various competent bodies (firefighters, publics agencies, etc.), in view of its non-compliance with current legislation. The project aims to bring together living and leisure spaces in a single building aimed at different family profiles, as well as shops and offices, configuring a type of enterprise that has been gaining strength in Brazil and which is already widely spread in the USA and Europe, the Mixed Use. The intervention proposal aims at the incorporation of new uses and functions to the building, focusing mainly on aspects of accessibility, safety and comfort, also concerned with the dialogue between the building and the street and the various possible visual connections with the Potengi river and with the Historic Center of the capital Potiguar. In this way, it is expected to obtain a building that can cover current demands, of the most diverse, with an aesthetic that respects the preexisting, taking advantage of the built potential and the already existing and consolidated infrastructure, contributing to the reactivation of urbanity and local vitality.