RESEARCH ARTICLE

Night and day at the beach: Relating social life to location and infrastructure in a Brazilian city

  • Lucy Donegan ,
  • Gabriel de Oliveira Madruga ,
  • Natália Vale Carneiro
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  • Departamento de Arquitetura e Urbanismo, Federal University of Paraíba, João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil

Received date: 20 Nov 2021

Revised date: 03 Apr 2022

Accepted date: 09 May 2022

Published date: 29 Dec 2022

Copyright

2022 2022 Higher Education Press Limited Company. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co. Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Abstract

Brazilian city beaches are public spaces favoring citizens well-being. Urban studies relate built form and infrastructure with urban vitality and coastal studies underline uses as important for beach management, yet few researches relate form and infrastructure with beach uses. Understanding daily life as essential for public spaces and that spatial form relates with uses, this paper assesses time-based relationships between built and natural physical attributes and social life on the beaches of João Pessoa, a coastal city in North-east Brazil. Physical attributes are investigated at city scale - beach type, street network centrality and topography - and seafront scale - land uses, public/private interfaces, public infrastructure, beach sections and water quality. Beach social life was surveyed online, enquiring peoples’ beach choice, visiting time and place, activities and evaluation. Infrastructure and street network follow topography and help configure shore and promenade for different landscapes. More central beaches have diverse land uses, well-equipped promenades and lighting and were popular night and day, while less central beaches had less infrastructure and were visited only by day. Findings highlight how physical attributes facilitate uses and, together with peoples’ evaluation, can inform urban beach design and planning.

Cite this article

Lucy Donegan , Gabriel de Oliveira Madruga , Natália Vale Carneiro . Night and day at the beach: Relating social life to location and infrastructure in a Brazilian city[J]. Frontiers of Architectural Research, 2022 , 11(6) : 1177 -1192 . DOI: 10.1016/j.foar.2022.05.001

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