Pela porta de serviço: análise espacial das dependências de empregadas dos edifícios de apartamentos nas décadas de 1960-1990 na cidade de Maceió/AL

Abstract

Living in large cities represented a slow transition from single-family to multi-family buildings. The initial apartment plans reproduced the functional tripartition of the urban bourgeois house and placed the maid's room in different locations: within the service sector of the apartments; on the standard floor; in the form of a house on the ground floor; and on the top floor. The presence of the maid in Brazilian residences is a cultural factor, especially in the northeastern families of the middle and upper classes. The aim of this master's dissertation in Architecture and Urbanism is to analyze the spatial configurations that marked the maid's rooms of the apartments of medium and high standard vertical residential buildings, produced from 1964 to 1999 in the city of Maceió, capital of Alagoas. The adopted procedures have a qualitative and quantitative approach and consisted of bibliographic and documentary research, and project analysis of 268 floor plans of apartment buildings, from which were characterized the patterns of spatialization of maid dormitories; service bathrooms; and access elements (entrance of the apartments, corridors and elevators), considering the division of “social” and “service” uses. It was used as database research conducted by the Study Group on Architecture Design (gEPA/FAU/UFAL) of the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the Federal University of Alagoas. It was observed that, in the 1960s and 1970s, all apartments had maid’s room, even the 2-bedroom typology. Only in the 1980s, the apartments with the third reversible dormitory appeared, with signs of flexibility in the plants. In the 1990s, complete maid’s room remains only in the 3 and 4 bedroom apartment typologies. It was found that the presence of the maid's dormitory prevailed over the supply of apartments produced in the four decades analyzed, especially in the typologies of 3 and 4 dormitories of high constructive standard buildings; and that this room has undergone few variations, always being arranged within the service sector of apartments, close to the service area, and almost always arranged without flexibility of access to other housing sectors. It was concluded that during the analyzed period, there was a phenomenon of maid dormitory suppression in the programs of medium standard buildings; the maintenance of the service bathroom; and the tendency for “totally separate circulating, elevating, and service entrances and service entrances” to become attributes only of high-end buildings designed for the city's wealthy families.