Banca de DEFESA: RENATO NASCIMENTO GOMES

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

Ducal Building; Modernism; Retrofit; Mixed Use; Urbanity.

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.