Common Space and Behavior at the Border between Slum and Metropolitan Area: The Case of “Catambor” and “Alvalade”

Abstract

Composed of modern city centers and numerous slum patches in deep proximity and coexistence with one another, the Sub-Saharan African urban landscape is often perceived as chaotic or unorganized in nature due to the inconsistencies in the urban layout derived from the spontaneous occupation in said slums, in Angola, known as “Musseque”. This article focuses on the border between the “Musseque” of Catambor and the Alvalade Neighborhood as a point of interaction of both realities, influencing users to either adjust their activities to the streets or adjust the streets to their needs. With the purpose of understanding the streets’ environmental behavior settings and purpose improvements while preserving said environmental behavior, this study uses the behavior mapping method to identify the users’ stationary activities and then groups them by zone and occurrence, followed ultimately by a series of interviews. The results uncovered a degree of self-intervention by the users, ranging from the establishment of “commercial spots” on the street to “the setting of places to sit and gather” to accommodate for the lack of services, defying the intended purposes of the streets and prompting a deep understanding of what guides the decision-making processes and what the users consider valuable to the built space.