When luxury is necessary. Apartment projects in Recife

SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th International Space Syntax Symposium 006
When luxury is necessary. Apartment projects in Recife – Brazil Cristiana Griz Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, UFPE crisgriz@gmail.com Luiz Amorim Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, UFPE amorim@ufpe.br Abstract This article deals with the relationship between domestic space and contemporary ways of living, which is investigate by analyzing apartment projects produced by the state market in Recife and the changes made by the new buyers -­‐ the elite of Recife, during the first decade of the Twenty First Century. The product released and commercialized still under construction (know as the original project), largely differs from the finished product (the reformed project), which is a result of a specific ways of living of this class of consumer. Based primarily on the concepts and methods described in the theory of social logic of space, the analysis seeks to understand the extent in which some attributes of the contemporary society (or the society of consumption) redefine certain social behavior partners of the family, particularly, their ways of living, and how those ways of living could cause impact on the spatial patterns of the apartment. The results from the analysis of the projects confirm that there is a standardization for the original projects designed by the state market, corroborate with the diversity of social attributes which characterize the contemporary family and their ways of living (expressed in the reformed projects) and, also, point to the power of the media, although limited, in conditioning the elite of Recife to make luxury a necessity. Keywords Apartment project, spatial configuration, ways of living, consumption. 1. Introduction 1
This paper deals with the relationship between ways of living and domestic space, more specifically, 2
with regards to the contemporary families and the spatial organization of the apartment they inhabit. 1
Ways of living, which is also called lifestyles (Tramontano, 1993) and modes of living (Lawrence, 1987; Paula, 2007; Rapoport, 1985), is one of the aspects that expresses the way certain groups develop domestic activities. 2
The family in contemporary society is not unique, or, at least, does not characterize a specific type of family, with homogeneous values and composition (Sant'anna, 1998). According to Petrini (2005, p. 29) some traditional features are abandoned, but are not consolidated "new family models universally recognized and accepted." C Griz & L Amorim When luxury is necessary. Apartment projects in Recife – Brazil 6:1 SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th International Space Syntax Symposium The apartment building can be described as a set of standard housing units usually reproduced both horizontally and vertically. However, this repetition happens under certain circumstances, such as the urban regulations and the form and dimension of the plot. These restrictions promote, in many circumstances, similar plan solutions, providing some degree of standardization of the local real estate market product (Figure 1). Figure 1: Distinct apartment projects, designed by different architects, which have the similar formal and spatial solution. Source: Griz, 2012. This standardization of units, highlighted by several Brazilian researchers and observed in various regions of the country (Brandão, 2002; Tramontano, 2004), establishes nonconformities with regards to buyers’ expectations. This is because this product is traditionally designed according to universal parameters that considers the nuclear family a model of social organization. However, census data indicate significant changes in the Brazilian social demographic profile, revealing a considerably growth on the number of non nuclear families structures (Berquó, 1989; IBGE, 2010). Furthermore, researchers have also highlighted a diversity of ways of living that vary according to social origin, education, etc., which became focus of the attention both to register and promote the concept of “living well” (Amorim and Loureiro, 2003; Araujo, 2006; Loureiro and Amorim, 2008). The apartment, understood as a consumer’s product, is part of the consumerism phenomenon, therefore related to marketing strategies and mass media that, by reinforcing (or suggesting) certain characteristics of a product, promotes desire or even the need to purchase it. In the case of the real estate market, the media, based on a certain logic of production of taste, promotes and conditions family needs and status to spaces for living in. 3
Within the Recife’s elite (Araújo, 2006), for example, choosing to live in a “trendy apartment 4
building” or in an apartment building that offers, beside others facilities, a “gourmet kitchen” becomes essential to “living well”. Reciprocally, the way of “living well” is seen as one of the necessary attributes for those who live in these apartments to be beheld as the higher members of society. Furthermore, for some, it is not enough to own a good apartment; it is necessary to hire a well-­‐known architect to acquire the attributes of a trendy aesthetic. 3
The word “elite” is used to describe groups hierarchically superior, in this case, economic and social
superiority.
4
The “gourmet kitchen” is a concept that emerged by the change of meaning, value and, therefore, status of cooking activity, and is widely published in various publications, advertisements and events promoted by developers and estate agents. This type of kitchen is characterized by its integration with the social housing areas like the living room and dining room or located at the apartment building common area. C Griz & L Amorim When luxury is necessary. Apartment projects in Recife – Brazil 6:2 SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th International Space Syntax Symposium In fact, there is a growing number of customized5 apartments as a result of: (a) the standardization of apartments projects put into market; (b) the growing changes in the Brazilian cultural demographic profile and; (c) the role of mass media to promote the ideal of "living well". The so-­‐
called reformed project (RP), resulted from this customization process, greatly differs from the original project (OP) – the one launched and commercialized by developers (Figure 2). Figure 2: Customization of an apartment project for a “single man”. Source: http://casa.abril.com.br/materias/apartamentos/horizonte-­‐aberto-­‐duplex-­‐bem-­‐masculino-­‐solteiro-­‐
630061.shtml#3. The changes are many and varied, for example, a single alteration of space use – from bedroom to study room, dislocation of door positioning, changes in surfaces finishing or partitioning alterations. The reformed projects (RP) of particular interest are the ones that have their spatial organization significantly altered. The goal is to understand though the analysis of original and reformed projects to what extent some attributes of contemporary society redefine social family conduct, particularly its ways of living are embedded in housing units. This research is based on the assumption that family members, understood as consumers, structures they everyday living space according to a dual function (Baudrillard, 1998): one purely utilitarian and another symbolic (which provides social distinction). 2. Methodology The adopted methodological procedure aims at analyzing the relationship between domestic space and contemporary ways of living. It looks at the attributes of spatial organization and the social values of the contemporary family. The spatial analysis is developed according to three variables: (a) the functional one refers to the functions and activities prescribe to be developed in each room and is observed according to the labels shown in the projects; (b) the dimensional one relates to the area of each socio-­‐functional sector (Amorim, 1997; 1999) and rooms, (c) the configurational one focus on the spatial structure of the apartments according to the procedures introduced by Hillier and Hanson (1984), as it is shown in the subsection below. 5
The word “customize” is being use in Brazil in many fields of knowledge that deals with the production of consumer goods. It is used in a way to adapt, or personalize a product to the customer’s preferences (Griz et al, 2010).
C Griz & L Amorim When luxury is necessary. Apartment projects in Recife – Brazil 6:3 SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th International Space Syntax Symposium Space syntax analysis The configurational properties explored in this investigation were accessibility and visibility. Accessibility is only possible between two adjacent spaces (Steadman 1983), through permeability in the common boundary between them. Visibility between two spaces overcomes adjacency restrictions and it is related to the very nature of the plan and the physical properties of the material components – if opaque or transparent. Visual connection between convex spaces is only considered when their most commonly used fragments are mutually visible. For example, if a bed is visible from the living room couch, them the respective spaces are considered visually connected. This procedure was adopted as a form to register the effective visual interaction between users when developing their domestic activities (see Figure 3). Figure 3: Visual connection between domestic spaces. From this definition, graphs were drawn accordingly (Figure 4) and the accessibility and visibility integration properties were calculated (in JASS software), both expressed by their Real Relative Asymmetry – RRA (Hillier and Hanson, 1984). C Griz & L Amorim When luxury is necessary. Apartment projects in Recife – Brazil 6:4 SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th International Space Syntax Symposium Figure 4: Above, accessibility map and its corresponding justified graph. Below, visibility map and its respective justified graph. The spatial configuration was also analyzed in terms of the sectors structure. The spaces that make up each functional sector are occupied by activities of the same nature. The spatial pattern of accessibility of these domestic sectors is analyzed, first, through the sectors graph (Figure 5). In this graph, the nodes, instead of representing a single convex space, represents a continuum of convex spaces belonging to the same socio-­‐spatial sector (Amorim, 1997; 1999). Figure 5: Sectors graph, according to Amorim (1997, 1999). The sectors graphs may reveal, on one hand, if they present highly permeable boundaries that allow access through more than one of its components, which reduces the control of movement and increases the interface between sectors (Graph k, Figure 12). On the other hand, they may present a single connection and be characterized by restricted access and high control (Graph b, Figure 12). According to the social logic of space theory, the most efficient way to analyze the relationship between the domestic space organization and its social meanings (expressions of the ways of living) is by observing the emerging spatial patterns or inequality genotypes (Hillier, Hanson, Graham, 1987) C Griz & L Amorim When luxury is necessary. Apartment projects in Recife – Brazil 6:5 SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th International Space Syntax Symposium related to a set of domestic activities: (a) the convex spaces that house nuclear household activities -­‐ understood as those related to interaction/entertaining (living room – L), eating (dining room – D), rest/sleep (suite -­‐ S) and cooking (kitchen – K); (b) the three domestic sectors -­‐ social (soc), private (pri) and service (serv). The resulted data was used to discuss the accessibility and the visibility aspects of the original and reformed projects. Methodological framework The obtained results regarding the three variables are the basis for the classification of apartment projects according to their degree of typicality (DT), that verifies patterns of reference according to the frequency of occurrence of the referred variables – functional, dimensional and configurational (see Box 1). DT results classify projects as typical and atypical (Griz, 2012). The term 'typical' describes the pattern of reference that may distinguish nonconformities or irregularities. The same characteristics among a large number of objects form a typical pattern of reference. Similarly, those that differ from the pattern of reference are characterized by atypical. Typical and atypical projects are a function of the degrees of functional typicality (GfT), dimensional typicality (GdT) and configurational typicality (GcT). Each degree varies between 0 and 1: a score closer to one, indicates high degree of typicality, whereas a score close to zero indicates high degree of atypicality. The average value of each variable defines their degree of typicality (DT). The project’s degree of typicality (PDT), in turn, is obtained by averaging the GfT, GdT and GcT values. Box 1: Items measured in each variable, to measure the degree of typicality (DTs). C Griz & L Amorim When luxury is necessary. Apartment projects in Recife – Brazil 6:6 SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th International Space Syntax Symposium Following this logic, a low value of DT is obtained when: (a) the analyzed variables have different frequencies and, therefore, do not indicate any pattern of reference; (b) the variables that present certain patterns of reference are not shared by a considerable number of analyzed projects In relation to social values, as the goal is to understand to what extent some attributes of consumer society redefine contemporary ways of living, the focus of the investigation is driven to understand the spatial organization of the apartment as much as a product of household consumption, or, as suggested by Wilk (1997, p. 35), as a "product of choices and decisions [of family members] standard and limited." In this sense, the model of cultural tendencies (Figure 6), proposed by Douglas (1998), is appropriate to deal with the problem, since it distinguishes four types of cultures (radical isolation, active individualism, conservative hierarchy and enclave dissident) that can be expressed in several instances, such as in homes, clothes, furniture, life styles, etc. Figure 6: Model of cultural tendencies. Author’s figure, based in Douglas (1998, p. 58). Douglas model outlines four axes, each of them highlights a particular cultural attitude present in societies. The axis formed by the diagonal that runs from the upper right quadrant to the lower left is the affirmation one that confirms the established status (cultural and behavior more accepted and followed by most of the society). The opposite diagonally is the negation one that goes against this same status. On the horizontal axis from left to right, individuals increase their degree of commitment to a particular group. The rightmost are more standardized preferences, tastes and behaviors. The more to the left, these preferences are more singularized, either affirming or negating the status set. The vertical axis shows the degree of challenge that indicates de degree of legitimacy of choices and preferences, which increase from bottom to top. If the contemporary family is understood as a consumers unit, Recife’s social elite can be classified according to Douglas (1998) model of cultural tendency and to correlate the four types of cultural groups with the spatial properties of the studied apartment projects (Griz, 2012). Assuming that, for the sake of the argument, ways of living are, to a certain degree, expressed by architecture, the PDT can be directly related to the model of cultural tendency, since both take as a base for classification similarities and differences between groups of individuals -­‐ in the case of the model of cultural tendency -­‐ and between projects -­‐ in the case of PDT (Figure 7). C Griz & L Amorim When luxury is necessary. Apartment projects in Recife – Brazil 6:7 SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th International Space Syntax Symposium Figure 7: Correlation between the model of cultural tendency and the categories of PDT. Source: GRIZ, 2012. The classification of an apartment project is defined, then, by the level of adoption of the patterns of references set by society, which can range from very typical apartment project-­‐ when the adoption of these patterns is high, to very atypical ones-­‐ when the existence these patterns is weak. 3. Analysis and discussion The application of these analysis procedures in 161 projects (105 OPs and 56 RPs) shows that the spatial organization of the apartments expresses both standardization and diversification. OPs are found to be very typical with regards to the three observed variables; in other words, they present patterns of references that confirm the adoption of standardized projects proposed by the real estate market. RPs, however, are found to be very atypical, revealing unique design solutions, without significant patterns of references (Figure 8). 50 45 40 35 30 very atypical fairly atypical fairly typical very typical 25 20 15 10 5 0 DfT DdT DcT OP C Griz & L Amorim When luxury is necessary. Apartment projects in Recife – Brazil 6:8 SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th International Space Syntax Symposium 50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 DfT DdT DcT RP Figure 8: Degrees of functional typicality (GfT), dimensional typicality (GdT) and configurational typicality (GcT) of the two types of projects. Regarding the functional variable, the room labels are classified according to the Bourdieu’s (1984) concepts necessity taste and luxury taste (Table 1). In the domestic ambiance, necessity taste is understood as the minimum number of rooms required for living in and the minimum room size for carrying out the dwelling functions. These are called necessity labels. The luxury taste relates to the rooms beside the minimal ones required for living in or rooms whose dimensions surpass minimum necessary for living in. These are identified as luxury labels. 6
Certain characteristics are common to all analyzed OPs. They all present all necessity labels plus four 7
8
luxury labels: one service bathroom, one service bedroom , at least one suite and one balcony . In this sense, these labels – the necessity ones plus the four luxury ones – are considered as the functional base core (FBC) of the projects offered to Recife’s elite. Table 1: Frequency of the labels in absolute numbers and in percentage. 6
Dining room, living room, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and service area. The OPs that do not have maid dependences are variations of those buildings that offer more than one plan option, since having these label is one of the requirements of the selection. 8
In 98,10% of cases, since only two OPs does not contain this label.
7
C Griz & L Amorim When luxury is necessary. Apartment projects in Recife – Brazil 6:9 SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th International Space Syntax Symposium One feature that distinguishes the two types of projects in functional variable is that while the OP 9
typical project is formed by the FBC , the RP typical project is characterized by having at least two or more luxury labels, especially regarding to specific rooms in the social sector and to the number of suites. In OPs, the typical is a maximum of two suites, while RPs have, at least, two of them (Figure 9). Figure 9: Example of typical OP and RP regarding the functional variable. Source: GRIZ, 2012. In dimensional terms, three aspects draw attention (Figure 7): (1) the proportional invariance of the area occupied by the service sector in OPs and RPs; (2) in OPs, the typical is having the private as the largest sector, while in RPs, is the social one; and (3) in RPs, suites are typicality larger than the 10
remaining bedrooms and the average interval of the sample , which is not observed amongst OPs (Table 2). It is also important to highlight that these bigger suites are usually labeled as “master suites”, stressing, thus, their importance and distinction from the other bedrooms. Figure 10: Example of OP and RP typical in the dimensional variable. Source: GRIZ, 2012. 9
With one or, at most, two luxury labels. 2
Larger than 21m .
10
C Griz & L Amorim When luxury is necessary. Apartment projects in Recife – Brazil 6:10 SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th International Space Syntax Symposium Table 2: Average area per room, in absolute numbers and in percentage. The functional and dimensional properties suggest that elite’s families acquire apartments with many bedrooms to turn them into extra rooms of the social sector (home theatre and home office, for example) or to increase the dimension of the master suite (Figure 10), by suppressing one or two bedrooms. This is one of the luxurious attributes that, according to the specialized media, promote status and distinction to homeowners. In this sense, changing the average sector’s area of OPs to approximately 50% of the private, 30% of the social and 20% of the service are the main used strategies to deny the reference pattern found in OPs. Unlike these two variables, some configuracional characteristics are typical for both types of projects. In both, OPs and RPs, the configuration of domestic space favors encounters in rooms traditionally intended for interaction between inhabitants and visitors (social sector), while leaving rooms of the private sector more segregated. Moreover, the service areas, mainly the maid’s room, are isolated and segregated in relation to the remaining areas of the apartment (Figure 11). Figure 11: Example of an OP and a RP and theirs justified graph showing the deep position of the service C Griz & L Amorim When luxury is necessary. Apartment projects in Recife – Brazil 6:11 SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th International Space Syntax Symposium bedroom. These data highlights a striking feature of Brazilian society that remains expressed in the apartments of Recife’s elite: a strong social exclusion of maids. This exclusion is marked at the apartment’s entrance, with separate social and service accesses and reinforced by the long sequence of spaces required to move from the social and the private sector to the maid’s territory. This socio-­‐spatial configuration inhibits maid’s presence in the remaining sectors without being authorized. This exclusion is clearly expressed in the words of a homeowner member of Recife’s elite interviewed by Araújo (2006, p. 235): "Forget the “gourmet kitchen”. Close it all because my kitchen is only for maids. And I do not want anyone to see the maid in the house." Summing up, these highlighted properties are the typical reference patterns of the elite’s apartment projects that mark local established social status (Douglas, 1998). In RPs, however, the private sector, especially the master suite, becomes more segregated, which increases, to a certain extent, its degree of privacy. Moreover, the spatial structure of the projects favors the interaction in the living room than in the kitchen -­‐ the opposite that occurs in the OPs. Unlike that said the media -­‐ that trendy is entertaining friends and cooking for them in the gourmet kitchen -­‐ the analysis shows that the kitchen of the elite families seems to be organized more for productive activities and interaction between inhabitants and maids than for social activities and interaction among inhabitants and visitors. Another attribute that mark the negation of the pattern of reference in RPs is the type of sector graph. The typical sectors graph amongst de original projects is the ‘c’ type (the one that does not 11
present mediator space and that the private sector is accessible directly from the social one), which is found in 65,71% of the analyzed apartments. Reformed projects, conversely, present a diversity of sectors graph (Figure 12). This suggest that the elite’s families prefer a spatial organization that distributes spaces “in a way that one could go from sector to another without any need to go through a third one”– a social requirement of Brazilian society, according to Lemos (1989, p. 52). Figure 12: Sectors' graphs. In red, the most found in OPs. In blue, the ones found in RPs. 11
When a transition convex space or sector distributes the circulation between more than one sector it is classified as mediator (AMORIM, 1999). The mediator space’s function is to separate and isolate the relation between group of spaces, group of functions and group of users. C Griz & L Amorim When luxury is necessary. Apartment projects in Recife – Brazil 6:12 SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th International Space Syntax Symposium These obtained results suggest that the ways of living of the Recife’s elite indicate both the permanence of traditional social attributes that has been part of the Brazilian domestic ambiance for centuries, as well as the introduction of idiosyncratic aspects that characterize the contemporary family. This is possible because OPs and RPs provide high degree of centrality to the social sector, great isolation to the private sector and strong segregation to the service sector. RPs present two essential characteristics that are fully legitimized by the specialized media as the symbolic expression for “living well” (Araujo, 2006): larger, secluded and sophisticated master bedrooms and less intimate, larger and more specialized living rooms. Thus, it can be said that the incorporation of these luxury’s attributes to the home environment seems to be a necessity for the elite’s family to be recognized and included among the highest social ranks of society. 4. Conclusions Contemporary society is deeply marked by consumerism. As a global phenomenon, consumerism is present in our daily lives, guides the organization of our social lives and enables the acquisition of social status; therefore associated with symbolic fields of various natures. These symbols are legitimated through mass media by associating certain products or features to social status. The luxury goods consumption, for example, is always associated with the upper social classes. In this context, the luxury has the function of highlighting the social position of the consumer, being an object-­‐sign of social distinction (Baudrillard, 1998). The elite’s apartment, seen as one more consumer product, should fit these patterns of consumption considered "luxurious" and should be located in the most prestigious and privileged neighborhoods, part of a housing development that offers a large amount of leisure items and present, through customization, a set of spatial features apart from the dwelling basic needs. Purchasing an apartment for Recife’s elite means, in most of the cases, refurbishing the standard unit in order to incorporate such features, fulfilling, according to Baudrillard (1998), a double function: the pragmatic (enable the development of certain domestic activity) and the symbolic one (demonstration of good taste, social status and superiority over others). As demonstrated, the typical RP owned by Recife’s elite reveals strategies to conserve socially accepted principles that shape contemporary domestic space, but also strategies to introduce distinctiveness. The most relevant conservative strategies are favoring social encounter in rooms for the social activities (e.g., living and dining rooms), restricting movement in spaces for inhabitants’ private use (e.g., main bedroom) and segregating the service sector, especially the maid’s bedroom. Innovative strategies coincide with two of the attributes widely publicized by the media: emphasis on entertaining rooms and on the privacy space of the family members of higher status. The referred strategies are expressed through attributes that give what is superfluous (or luxurious), the status of necessity. Attributes that are expressed in RPs in distinct ways and frequencies, such as increasing the size of social and private spaces and introducing labels that provide greater specialization of activities, for example, home theaters and home offices. In sum, Recife’s elite typical apartment projects attend to twofold requirements. On the one hand, offer the necessary conditions to house the basic dwelling needs. On the other hand, offer the symbolic values that characterize the contemporary consumer society, notably the luxury items, such as the master suites. It becomes evident that for this consumer’s class luxury is necessary to provide distinction and mark the social position to which they belong, either by conservative interest – in the case of the traditional elite, or by transformation – in the case of the new elite. Therefore, when luxury is necessary, it shall be, then, a tool that encrypts and reaffirms the social status of residents through its apartment. 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