Heritage, urban form and spatial resignification in the production of sustainable Olympic legacies: an urban design analysis of the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games

Abstract

The Olympic Games have been associated with many urban transformation projects throughout their history, often focusing on city expansion. Recent sustainability concerns, however, constitute a pressing challenge, with the regeneration of central areas fulfilling a key role in existing urban agendas. In this paper, the legacy of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at two proposed centralities was analysed, namely, the Olympic Park, intended as a future neighbourhood to the west of the city, and Porto Maravilha (PM), an urban project aimed at revitalizing a central, historical area of the city. By comparing the Olympic Park and the first provided areas in PM, in terms of selecting urban design criteria through qualitative in loco assessments, this paper focused on analysing the impacts of urban forms and heritage on the consolidation of these two centralities, as well as encouraging social interaction and integration into the city. The analysis results indicated that urban design attributes such as human-scaled, mixed-use, context-based urban spaces could interfere with social interaction and the usability of spaces. Moreover, the repurposing of heritage buildings contributed to urban cohesion for legacy transformation. Hence, novel insights into urban design and heritage could become important for future editions of the Olympics so that host cities may fulfil their sustainability agendas.

1 Introduction

The mega-event model as a catalyst for large-scale urban transformations (Essex and Chalkley 1998) may have had one of its final examples in the city of Rio de Janeiro. It has been demonstrated that this model, especially after the success of the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, is unsustainable in the long term, especially in underdeveloped countries where most urban infrastructure is missing (Zimbalist 2015). While certain mega-events, such as the European Capital of Culture, have been characterised by the reuse and repurposing of existing structures to promote the history and identity of the host city (Jones 2017), other events, such as the Olympic Games and World Expos, have since been based on the need to build new infrastructures, which conforms with the ambitious visions of the host cities but results in high costs and, often, detached realities.

Despite a recent focus on urban regeneration by Olympic host cities such as London in 2012, the reuse of buildings throughout Olympic Games history has been limited and can be regarded as an exception rather than the norm. The Olympic Stadium, for example, has often been an enduring symbol for host cities (Kiuri and Teller 2015). In recent years, however, there has been a shift in terms of the legacy vision for the Olympic Games, which can be observed in the changes proposed in Agenda 2020 and Agenda 2020 + 5 by the International Olympic Committee, namely, the promotion of the reuse of existing infrastructure. In this sense, existing sites with large-scale structures such as former industrial complexes could be valuable assets for Olympic legacy and urban regeneration conversations.

Rio de Janeiro, which served as the host city in 2016, was in part inspired by the legacy strategy of London for the 2012 games in terms of promoting future uses of Olympic venues, as well as reusing some existing sports venues. Rio’s decision to spread the Olympic venues in four clusters throughout the city aimed to multiply the legacy benefits in different regions but has also created a problem as a result of the proposed establishment of two new centralities on the basis of (mostly privately) further development: the conversion of the Olympic Park Barra da Tijuca (OPBdT; 118 ha) into a new neighbourhood by 2030¹ and a regenerated harbour area, namely, Porto Maravilha² (PM; 500 ha). Located on geographically opposite sides of the city, these two areas exhibit different historic contexts, and they were established under contrasting urban form principles, which, along with specific social, cultural, and governance issues, affect their legacy occupation and use (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1

The two study areas—the Olympic Park Barra da Tijuca and Porto Maravilha—occur on geographically opposite sides of Rio de Janeiro city (Source: the author)

OPBdT and PM regeneration efforts encompass important analysis objects to implement Olympic plans and ensure practical results for the host city, namely, the creation of more attractive, inclusive, dynamic, and sustainable urban spaces. As products of specialized architectural discourse and officially advertised by the government as Olympic legacy sites, both PM and the conversion of the Olympic Park into a mixed-use neighbourhood anchored by high-profile sports arenas represent the chance to create notable and integrated spatial phenomena by establishing architectural and urban design models at the metropolitan and even national scales.

However, as observed in the immediate legacy years, these two geographically opposite sites also exhibit proportional differences in terms of their usability and social appropriation, which provides helpful examples of the importance of their urban forms and urban designs for their consolidation as collective spaces integrated into the city. On the basis of a review of urban design literature and field trips conducted between 2016 and 2023, in this paper, a qualitative analysis methodology was employed to assess the mechanism by which urban design may shape urban legacies derived from mega-events. In the analysis, the impact of each intervention was investigated via the assessment of urban design criteria. In contrast to previous research conducted between 2015 and 2019 (Sanchez 2019), the analysis in this paper further highlights the role of heritage in the legacy transformation process, as well as its importance for ensuring cohesion of the urban fabric, since it may serve as a link between the past and present not only in physical terms but also in terms of memory and social appropriation. Industrial heritage is a key element of the urban form of PM and represents the enormous potential of idle built-up areas that can be converted into various uses while maintaining preexisting formal relationships and preserving part of the regional identity. Hence, such heritage plays a major role in legacy transformation and the integration of uses into the existing urban fabric.

As such, this paper aimed to analyse experiences compiled throughout a seven-year period since the event, which may provide an initial but important contribution to understanding the short-term impacts of these two Olympics-related urban interventions.

2 Relevance of urban design for the creation of olympic urban legacies

In this paper, it is hypothesised that urban design—both as a process/discipline and the act of designing (Cuthbert 2003; Krieger and Saunders 2009)—is crucial for ensuring successful legacies of Olympic structures and sites because it can help shape social relationships through the built environment and urban form.

However, multiple factors are involved in legacy consolidation of a given Olympic structure. First, there is high risk that the original plans may change due to economic and political circumstances, for which a strong vision for the future of these Olympic buildings and sites must be referenced so that the eventual changes do not compromise entire morphological and urban design concepts. Second, there is a risk of redundancy of large-scale arenas and spaces after the games due to their size. Hence, from inception, they must be considered legacy sites in regard to both their design and governance. The conversion of large-scale areas into more ordinary dimensions must be connected to public transportation, paths of walkable distances, and a cohesive urban grid to enable their integration into their immediate urban settings and then, within a wider context, into the broader urban region. Moreover, masterplans and neighbourhoods must allow change over time and provide a degree of flexibility to incorporate new trends, users, and cultural aspects while still promoting the memory of places, which is directly linked to the social dimension of sustainability. On the basis of the former, it is hypothesised herein that urban design must be addressed during site development both in terms of a practical design act (design) and a continued planning and management strategy directed towards implementing and maintaining attractive, sustainable, resilient, and well-used spaces (process).

Since its beginning, the urban design discipline has encompassed numerous physical realm discussions regarding the morphological and typological characteristics of urban spaces, such as a compact urban form (encouraging walkability), the configuration of public spaces for gathering (squares and parks), active façades, a mixture of users and activities (residents, students, workers, tourists, etc.), clear geometrical characteristics and aesthetic qualities, and a high density (Jacobs 1961; Gehl 1987, Gehl and Gemzøe 1996; Krier 1979). When we consider the term ‘urban’ as a social meaning assigned to a particular spatial form (Castells 1983), the impacts of different typologies, elevations and urban forms on the interaction among users and permanence at the street level become clear.

While the city may be regarded as a social and historical product derived from a process of assigned conflicting urban meanings by different stakeholders and historical players (Castells 1983), it is important not to grant it a passive role. Along with social interactivity, the built form shapes different urbanities. According to a Lefebvrian perspective, there exists a dialectical process between the urban form and society, in which one interferes with the other (Lefebvre 2011). This dichotomy is also related to the distinction described by Sennett (2018) through the concepts of cité (urban character; citizenship) and ville (built environment in the city), which refer to the dual nature of the urban design disciplinary field. Because a shared urban meaning is reflected in the urban form, when urban spaces are shaped by new urban design and regeneration proposals, it becomes clear that one should consider the multiple social meanings employed over the years. Nonetheless, attempts to adjust such urban meanings might consequently affect the urban form, a discussion made possible only within the urban realm.

Additionally, the urban realm has been claimed as fertile soil for interdisciplinary solutions for contemporary cities to emerge: the high concentration of people in global cities, technology level and flows of information could lead to possible innovations, which could enable the resolution of existing urban problems on a long-term basis (Jenks 2004, 2–3). Sustainable urbanism often suggests compact urbanisation models, more intelligent, collective transportation systems, and denser urbanities (Schwartz 2014), which does not necessarily suggest verticalisation, a model that has dominated urbanisation in Brazilian cities (Macedo 2009). The combination of density, design and diversity (the 3Ds advocated by Cervero and Kockelman 1997) within the urban realm both in existing neighbourhoods and new masterplans has seldom been achieved, often because practice—and design—has not been connected to the urban processes underlying city development. In this sense, Matthew Carmona’s (2014) place-shaping continuum theory of urban design, in which four active place-shaping processes are distinguished, namely, design, development, space in use, and management, is relevant. The application of such theory in Olympic case studies has provided a greater understanding of the implementation and use of a place, as well as its interrelationships (Sanchez and Essex 2017).

Because design creates value (Carmona et al. 2002; Carmona 2014), interventions also influence economic growth and spatial attractiveness, even if the discussion refers to public space fruition. As a public space, the street is highly influenced by all services and activities connected to it on the ground level and upper floors, and these influences determine various types of relationship within this urban realm (Montgomery 2003). The spatial configuration has played an important role in promoting these relationships and degrees of flexibility over the years. For example, perimeter blocks may exhibit advantages since their multiple façades allow change over time while maintaining the original urban intention (Scoffham and Marat-Mendes 2001) and high density (Steadman 2014). Furthermore, they provide more linear areas for active façades than do isolated buildings, enabling different types of spaces for tertiary activities, which could encourage social interaction (Gehl and Gemzøe 1996; Jacobs 1961), as well as different social groups, which is fundamental to urban resilience and sustainability (Salgueiro 2011) and the quality of urban places and cultural quarters (Montgomery 2003).

In Rio de Janeiro, the perimeter block configuration can be observed in early 20th century urban plans for the central area, following Beaux-Arts urban principles, as well as in southern zone districts such as Copacabana and Ipanema, where vertical development with no setbacks resulted in a particular type of perimeter block occupation. This configuration differs from the modernist approach adopted during the second half of the century, encompassing isolated towers, which characterized the development of the western region of Barra da Tijuca. As observed in the harbour area of Rio, perimeter blocks can comprise different typologies and uses, including historical houses and industrial buildings. The latter may pose challenges in their further transformation, given their scale and specific typologies such as silos. However, their historic character and significance in the urban fabric may serve as anchors for urban development in the area, helping to promote its identity and consolidate its urban character (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2

Different urban forms characterize the areas of Porto Maravilha (left) and the Olympic Park Barra da Tijuca (right), where the Olympic Park and Athletes' Village (in red) are located. The circles denote a 500-m radius, which is an acceptable walking distance, and it is shown that the Olympic Park region fails to provide a variety of uses and activities within this radius (Source: the author)

Although a significant number of studies on urban space use evaluation have focused on analysing and measuring the morphological and typological aspects of the urban realm and their interrelation with urban social activity (Ewing and Handy 2009; Boeing 2018; Jabareen 2006; Nunes and Vale 2018), few authors have addressed them to study Olympic urban legacies (Azzali 2017), despite their importance in guaranteeing that the legacy of Olympic areas is absorbed as urban unities within the existing city. On the basis of the reviewed literature and the state of the art of the urban design discipline, it is questioned how urban forms and heritage might impact the consolidation of these two centralities, as well as encourage social interaction and integration into the city. The analysis methodology is explained in the following section.

3 Methodology—Urban design parameters for olympic legacy evaluation

As urban design is not only a broad theoretical disciplinary field but also a practice of design, any attempt to measure it should consider a holistic view of the object—as both a process and physical form. A framework for evaluating the urban design of Olympic areas was developed in previous research (Sanchez 2019) and was adopted in this study to assess the Olympic legacies of the selected areas (Fig. 3). The analysis begins more descriptively, aiming to briefly explain the background of the areas, governance issues, and urban processes involved. Then, a qualitative, in loco assessment was conducted on the basis of selected criteria from the literature review of urban design, as described in the previous section (design). These criteria were evaluated under empirical methods for the study of urban life (Gehl and Svarre 2013), such as diary generation, photographs, counting and mapping, and focused observation analysis, which highlights how people interact with spaces.

Fig. 3

Urban design as a practice and process. Methodology for Olympic urban design legacy assessment (Source: the author)

The observation analysis focused on a selection of some of the most visually and spatially remarkable features (criteria) of urban spaces needed to transform mega-event spaces into consistent and enjoyable every-day environments: active façades; high density; clear urban space features; presence of low-rise buildings; perimeter block configuration; presence and quality of green areas; mixed use; variety of typologies; variety of tertiary spaces; compact forms; accessibility (public transport); walkability; presence of spaces for planned and unplanned events; human scale; user interaction on the ground level; and cohesion of the urban fabric.

As presented in the literature review, these criteria suggest benefits in the creation of lively, dynamic, good-quality urban spaces and, therefore, facilitate the establishment of an integrated empirical framework for observation analysis via the different field trips conducted between 2017 and 2023 that helps explain the design transformation and use of these urban legacies in the years immediately after the games.

Table 1 provides a systematic summary of the assessment, in which the considered criteria are ranked according to a Likert reference scale from 1 to 5 (1 – nonexistent; 2 – low presence of spaces and/or poor quality of design; 3 – moderate presence/sufficient spaces but of a poor quality; 4 – suitable presence/good amount and quality of spaces but not ideal; 5 – high presence/very good quality and quantity of spaces; ideal).

Table 1 Presence of key favourable urban design features according to the literature in the two study areas—the first delivered sites in the Olympic Park and PM—based on a Likert reference scale of 1 to 5, where 1 denotes nonexistent spaces; 2 denotes a low presence of spaces and/or poor quality design; 3 denotes a moderate presence/sufficient spaces but a poor quality; 4 denotes a suitable presence/good amount and quality of spaces but not an ideal quality; and 5 denotes a high presence/very good quality and quantity of spaces; ideal quality

4 Urban design for ensuring the olympic legacy of Rio

4.1 Olympic Park Barra da Tijuca (OPBdT)

The OPBdT was built at a site in the western zone of the city, near the upper-class region of Barra da Tijuca, close to former 2007 Pan-American Games sports venues. In 2011, the Brazilian Institute of Architects and the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro conducted a design competition for choosing the best park proposal, which complied with a three-phase plan—the games (2016), a transition period, and a legacy period (approximately 2030). After winning the bid for a public‒private partnership, the Rio Mais consortium—comprising the major Brazilian contractors Andrade Gutierrez, Carvalho Hosken, and Odebrecht—became responsible for building game-mode infrastructure and maintaining venues and common areas of the park over the next 15 years. As pecuniary compensation, it received 30 plots of land for future real estate development within the OPBdT. Although the urbanisation of these plots and the transformation of the park into a neighbourhood would reference the winning legacy masterplan, the final formal outcome is only bound to municipal land use legislation. Since the end of the games, such transformation has been relatively uncertain.

In March 2016, the Municipality of Rio launched a public notice to conform to a public‒private partnership or concession of the legacy project of the OPBdT. The urban consulting firm AECOM (who had been involved in designing the Olympic Park masterplan) prepared studies for the venues and the conversion of the Olympic Way into a public linear park, as available for public consultation. The live site at the park’s end would become a green recreational space, occupied along the sides by cafés, restaurants, hotels and shops. The project also included the adaptation of existing arenas and the disassembly of temporary venues, along with the dismantling of IBC’s Technical Gallery³ and the use of its structure for a new athlete accommodation building within the complex.

These documents highlighted the transformation of the OPBdT into a high-performance sports training centre, as well as a space for social use and events (Prefeitura da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro 2016). In addition, part of the Velodrome would be converted into a National Sports Museum, which, however, was not concluded due to building problems that prevented it from accommodating museum facilities, as well as a lack of a curatorial plan (Mello, personal communication, 2019).

However, the bidding process for the concession failed in November 2016 and, after a cancelled, doubtful emergency contract was signed afterwards, given 1) the pressure to promote the legacy, 2) the deficit in public finances, 3) the several claims of corruption involving the mayor and the governor of Rio, and 4) the transition of municipal governments, the then Ministry of Sport took over some Olympic venues in December 2016 through the creation of a unique ministerial office—the Olympic Legacy Authority Governance (AGLO, in Portuguese). Created by a provisional measure on March 29, 2017, it became responsible for the maintenance and management of Arenas 1 and 2, the Olympic Tennis Centre and the Olympic Velodrome, in addition to some venues at the military Deodoro Complex (AGLO 2017, 8–9). The AGLO fulfilled an important role in the immediate legacy years by attracting events and users to the arenas. Such actions improved the perceived ambience of the park in terms of the degree of mixed use (the AGLO built a beach volleyball court that attracted more events) and user interaction and permanence in the park.

However, the postgame use of the Olympic Way remained a crucial issue: its transformation from a large promenade for 150,000 people during the Olympics to a recreational area more suitable for daily use has remained a challenge ever since. Despite the initial enhancement of the public spaces by the municipality, as observed in May 2017—with the creation of sports courts, playgrounds, new vegetation and benches—the originally planned variety of trees and gardens was reduced. Built by Rio Mais as an environmental compensatory measure, the established vegetation barely provided shade, which, under a temperature over 40 °C common in summer, could be crucial for attracting visitors to the park. In addition, the consolidation of public spaces did not receive the same level of interest as did other more lucrative events. Sadly, prior to a major music festival allocated to the park at the end of 2017, the open sports courts were removed and not rebuilt due to security issues.

Apart from days with events, the park remained relatively empty, despite AGLO’s social, sports-related programmes for children from nearby communities, which indicated a more embracing legacy use of the park. Regrettably, on August 6, 2017, when the AGLO promoted the park’s first-year anniversary, the park was a largely deserted public space, demonstrating that the practical value of the park did not correspond to its supposed symbolic value (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4

Public spaces in the Olympic Park used in legacy mode, as observed during a series of field trips, thereby assessing the following criteria: scale, quality of green areas/public spaces and user permanence/interaction on the ground floor. The large scale of public spaces and the few uses created a relatively unexciting and empty atmosphere. The initial transformations to humanize the Olympic Way have been poorly executed and maintained, and the high temperature of concrete surfaces prevented people from using open spaces more often (Source: the author)

Remarkably, the consolidation of the sense of place of the Olympic Park has also faced challenges related to its implementation, with the eviction of a community that had inhabited part of the site for more than 30 years. As a result of the turbulent process in which a few families managed to remain on site with new homes built by the state, any feelings of being part of and being welcome in the park after the games were absent.

In 2018, the municipality partnered with the SESC (Social Service of Commerce, in Portuguese) to manage sports and leisure activities in Arena 3, which until then, had remained closed most of the time. As observed during the field trips, certain public facilities installed after the games, including a playground and a skate park, began to show some activity. However, owing to the absence of public restrooms, shaded spaces, drinking water facilities and food kiosks, use was restricted to the arenas, leaving the open-air spaces mainly empty until the temperature decreased after sunset, when nearby inhabitants or fleeting visitors engaged in jogging, skateboarding, and cycling activities or simply visited the former home of the Olympics.

Political circumstances should also be held accountable for the discontinuation of legacy plans. The elimination of the AGLO in 2019 and the closure of arenas in 2020 via a judicial decision caused the interruption of activities in the park. Furthermore, with another party ruling the city from 2017–2020, most works previously announced as Olympic legacies were interrupted. With the reelection of Mayor Eduardo Paes (2009–2016 and 2020–2024), certain plans have been resumed, such as the conversion of the Olympic Way (approximately 36 million) into an urban park and the conversion of arenas into schools, which was an integral part of the nomadic architecture concept proposed by the Organizing Committee. In February 2024, Paes inaugurated the conversion of Arena 3 into a public school.

Both the short- and long-term legacies of the OPBdT exhibit uncertainties. Isolated from the urban fabric—and by fences—and exhibiting both management and design issues, its conversion into a neighbourhood also encounters the challenge of an economic crisis that hinders its development and the emergence of mixed functions. Rio Mais owes more than one billion reais (approximately 180 million US dollars) to its creditor, the federal bank Caixa Econômica. As Odebrecht entered judicial recovery in 2019, the company included the debt related to the Olympic Park as part of payment guarantees (Mattos 2019). New investors, if and once found, will have to take on the nine-digit obligation (Alves 2023).

Although there is still time for things to evolve accordingly, the urban form adopted for the game mode created a challenge for its legacy transition. Additionally, the possible urban forms allowed by legal urban parameters in future real estate developments represent a concern. Existing urban legislation allows 18-storey buildings (and 22-storey hotels), an overall plot ratio of 1.0 (totalling a 1,180,000-m² floor space, excluding sports venues, the Media Hotel, IBC and Media Press Center) and a 30% permeability.⁴ However, while the winning legacy masterplan envisioned mixed-use developments in perimeter blocks, with smaller heights along the shore and small green areas among buildings, the approved alignment plan for the area in 2012 encompassed larger blocks, more strict separation between the venues and new developments, and no indication of public interstitial areas across large plots. A single municipality-owned frontal plot, however, provides hope for future public-focused approaches at this site.

Hence, the future urbanisation scenario may conflict with advocated urban design criteria for lively and sustainable urban spaces and repeat the same functionalist segregating typologies that have shaped Barra da Tijuca for the past 40 years (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5

Three-dimensional modelling studies suggest different urban form outcomes for each plot on the basis of current urban legislation: from ultramodernist urban form and lot coverages to denser, compact and likely vibrant urbanities (Source: the author)

4.2 Porto Maravilha (PM) urban regeneration

Although it was not part of the budget directly related to the games, urban regeneration in PM was widely promoted as an Olympic legacy (Lopes 2016). Designed as a public‒private partnership and legally established in 2009, the plan targeted the transformation of a strategically located area near the city centre, covering parts of seven neighbourhoods. After a prosperous historical period as the main arrival point during early colonial times, the region faced a severe decline, with a loss of importance of the harbour in the face of new technologies and logistics demands during the late twentieth century. The operation aimed to increase the number of residents in the area from 32,000 to 100,000 people until 2020, following the idea of a compact mixed-use region. To achieve this goal, the municipality sold certificates of additional building potential (CEPACs) and used the revenue obtained in regeneration works. Through the sold CEPACs, buildings could reach 50 storeys in specific areas,⁵ which may completely alter the urban landscape, which is characterised mainly by historical houses and hills occupied by favelas.

One of these hills is Morro da Providência, the first favela in Brazil, characterised by heterogeneous occupations of formal and informal housing. The urban operation proposed transformations in the area to promote it as a tourist destination (Monteiro 2022, 215). These included the creation of a cable car system, the restructuring of viewpoints, and the creation of a cultural circuit on the hill, for which several houses would need to be removed, raising housing conflicts in the area (Monteiro 2022). Nonetheless, in contrast to other mega-event-related urban transformations, PM works have not resulted in a significant number of evictions, which have been restricted to specific locations (Pereira and Oliveira 2020). The PM region exhibits an important number of vacant and underutilized properties—land and buildings—both public and private, which have for years been neglected and hence occupied by squatters. In the years preceding the announcement of the PM urban transformation operation, there was an increase in the number of repossession lawsuits as well as actions for combatting squatting (Pereira and Oliveira 2020). Recently, the reutilisation of vacant or underutilised buildings in central areas has received particular interest in certain Brazilian capitals, such as São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, which have passed specific legislation that incentivizes retrofitting for residential use. This practice conforms with a current much-desired sustainability discourse and has attracted real estate investors, who now have financial incentives to newly consider these properties. However, the provision of social housing remains in question since the law gives incentives but not obligations in this sense.

The physical and social dichotomies between the existing urban landscape and the new intentions for the area (in particular, the region has long been home to the excluded, namely, mostly poor and black people) has raised discussions and criticisms regarding the impacts of urban regeneration (Gianella and Monteiro 2022): new corporate buildings next to ruined houses and empty warehouses; high-end residential developments instead of social housing developments; new cultural facilities aimed at global tourism, as opposed to the consolidation of facilities that rescue the local historical and cultural origins (mainly African); and the proposal of a new identity for the area, aligned with a globalized and international outlook, while simultaneously purposely forgetting its existing identity and character. It could be argued, however, that the recent economic crisis has hindered touristification plans in the area (Monteiro 2022), as well as an aggressive gentrification process.

The focal point of Mauá Square contains two cultural landmarks—the Tomorrow Museum, opened in 2016 and designed by starchitect Santiago Calatrava, and the Rio Museum of Art (abbreviated as MAR in Portuguese), opened in 2013. Both spaces create a renovated, cultural and entertainment urbanity and centrality in the region. New urban furniture and landscaping have rendered it a comfortable space for permanence. Moreover, its wide areas allow for spontaneous or temporary activities, such as skateboarding, resting on the lawn, and walking through street markets, which are valuable strategies for shaping the identities of urban spaces (Aelbrecht 2017) (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6

Mauá Square, as photographed in May 2017 and June 2023, where the Tomorrow Museum and Rio Museum of Art (with a wavy ceiling on the left) are located (Source: the author)

An Olympic Boulevard was created parallel to Guanabara Bay following the demolition of an elevated highway. The linear course is flanked by industrial warehouses on the bay side and large buildings backs on the opposite side. Since several warehouses were empty during the games, artistic interventions and temporary sponsored activities were commissioned to create a festive atmosphere.

The impressive circulation of people during the event made it clear that the renovated area was well received. The feeling of safety (promoted by many policemen and members of the national military force on the streets⁶) and the extraordinary vitality provided by the diversity of people and variety of activities, which are usually absent, brought a sense of joy to the public spaces.

Unfortunately, after the games, flows have gone decreased, and the Boulevard has remained relatively underused until more permanent commercial activities (e.g., cafés, restaurants or shops) settle in the area that can provide dynamism. Between Mauá Square and the Aquarium—inaugurated in October 2016, in a former listed warehouse owned by the Brazilian storage company-, warehouses became large vacant boxes awaiting temporary events, usually held during the high season of tourism. In recent years, this unique typology has welcomed new uses and consequently flows of people, such as the inauguration of a YouTube space in the first warehouse in mid-August 2017, as well as the move of the headquarters of the CEDAE (Rio de Janeiro State Water and Sewage Company, in Portuguese) to one of the warehouses in 2022. The creation of new icons, such as the giant Ferris wheel, i.e., the Rio Star, overlooking Guanabara Bay, the largest in Latin America by the time it opened in December 2019, near the Aquarium, was also noteworthy.

Compared with the status of the area before start of PM regeneration efforts, it now possesses a more welcoming ambience and potential for new urban vitality. The removal of the viaduct that hid many of the monuments once facing the sea provided a broader, ventilated, and illuminated ground floor area, which has shaped a new urban area, welcoming different contemporary activities as the district experiences reactivation, possibly leading to a consequent increase in real estate prices.

Behind Rio’s Museum of Art, which stretches almost parallel to the Olympic Boulevard, lies Sacadura Cabral Street. Intended as Rio’s new creative district, it has received a significant number of companies and new commercial activities in recent years, which are interested in its strategic location and proposed new centrality. Moreover, spaces for the creative industry and cultural facilities have occupied a range of renovated historical buildings of various sizes and uses (e.g., 19th- and 20th-century warehouses, as well as residential and commercial houses), along with brand-new glazed buildings of international companies (e.g., L’Oréal), providing diversity and flows in the area. These spaces commingle with older and even lower-level places, creating a desirable mixture of users, including tourists, office workers from high-rise buildings, and even residents from nearby hills. The Largo da Prainha square, flanked by historical houses, has now been converted into area with restaurants and bars and has become a hot spot for various gatherings, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. With enlarged sidewalks for already active, human-scaled façades and a suitable connection to public transportation, the street scores high in terms of urban design attributes (Table 1), contributing to its consolidation as a vibrant urban space (Fig. 7).

Fig. 7

Transition in terms of user permanence, interaction on the ground floor and mixed uses along the Olympic Boulevard and Sacadura Cabral Street in Porto Maravilha, as observed during the different field trips. Although the Olympic Boulevard exhibits favourable urban design conditions for lively urbanities to arise, it has struggled with the absence of mixed uses and active façades (Source: the author)

Samba is part of the immaterial heritage of the region, which has been home to a community of African descent since slavery times. The manner in which African heritage is treated within urban regeneration efforts raises questions, however, regarding both misrepresentation and spectacularisation (Gianella and Monteiro 2022). The unearthing of the Valongo Wharf (Cais do Valongo) and its transformation into a monument provided an opportunity to reinforce part of the identity of the region, to recognize the site for its past as the largest trading point for enslaved blacks and to revisit aspects of the impacts of this fact on the construction of society and the city itself. Broudehoux (2024) described the notion of heritage attributed to the Valongo Wharf and the dissonant nature of the port revitalization project, thereby emphasizing the transformation of the port area over the centuries as a product of political intentions and the expression of power relations. As reported by the author, the process by which the monument was continually neglected by authorities revealed that this memory and heritage were not of interest in establishing the image of the new port. Nevertheless, the appropriation of the site by groups of militants over the years has generated a debate regarding the visibility of African history in this region, both in terms of pain and struggle and in terms of culture and resilience, which are doubly exposed in the social and physical fabric of the city.

Spanning from Sacadura Cabral Street to the Olympic Boulevard over four blocks, across Warehouse 5, the architecture and size of a distinct building are notable: the historic industrial mill complex of Moinho Fluminense (Fig. 8). Founded in 1887, it witnessed the transformation of the harbour region as landfill operations during the first two decades of the twentieth century expanded the area of the port and enabled the construction of large warehouses (Giannella 2013). Prior to the Olympics, the site was advertised as a new urban development site. However, plans were never fulfilled. In 2019, an investment fund acquired the complex with plans to convert it into a mixed-use development with a hotel, shops, residences, corporate spaces and public plazas. Demolitions of unlisted parts of the complex have already begun, but the expected design has not yet been published. Such actions contradict the sustainability discourse and may foster different types of relationships with the surrounding urban fabric, especially in terms of scale.

Fig. 8

The Olympic Boulevard, as observed in June 2023, with one of the warehouses on the left and the Moinho Fluminense complex in the background. Vegetation has grown, and more users visit and remain in the area. However, there is still a significant number of empty buildings as well as vacant plots for new developments after demolitions (Source: the author)

Between 2017 and 2020, a historic but unlisted warehouse of ca. 5,000 m² situated behind the silo of Moinho Fluminense was demolished. The building, owned by Companhia Docas do Rio de Janeiro, had been occupied by Armazém Cultural das Artes since the 1980s, an association that produces settings for theatre, cinema and television. However, in 2013, the building was transferred to Companhia de Desenvolvimento Urbano (Cdurp), which announced the eviction of the group in 2014 so that a residential complex could be constructed (Gould 2015). The association presented a project to transform the area into a cultural hub focused on theatre production, but this plan was not accepted, given the approved market-driven plans. The land, acquired by Tishman Speyer, would house a luxury, mixed-use residential development (Lumina Rio), as announced in 2015, but plans were halted in the face of the economic downturn in the country (Fig. 9). The historical but unlisted building was eventually demolished, despite being initially portrayed in project renderings (Girimun n.d.). Given the renewed interest in the region and the new legislation aimed at revitalization, the company has planned to relaunch the project. Despite high expectations for regeneration of the area, it remains uncertain how new developments will embrace preexisting groups and the history of the site.

Fig. 9

Pictures from May 2017 (above) and June 2023 (below) of the Moinho Fluminense surroundings. Vacant land after the demolition of unlisted industrial warehouses will house future real estate developments, which may alter the urban scale and cohesion of the urban fabric (Source: the author)

The reutilisation of industrial buildings for artistic, educational, and cultural purposes in the PM area could be beneficial for maintaining the character and identity of the region, in addition to more market-driven uses, thus providing an important social contribution, such as an opportunity to exercise citizenship (Lima and Mesentier 2023). An interesting example is Armazém da Utopia, a cultural centre managed by the theatre company Ensaio Aberto, which has occupied Warehouse 6 (Olympic Boulevard) since 2010. Another noteworthy case is the now closed Ação da Cidadania Cultural Center, which had occupied Docas D. Pedro II since 2003, a warehouse built in 1871 (Fig. 10). In 2017, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) granted the Valongo Wharf the title of World Heritage Site and required the transformation of the warehouse into a centre for interpretation and research on black culture. In the same year, the nongovernmental organisation (NGO) received an eviction order once the building would be transferred to the Ministry of Culture for its transformation into a museum dedicated to slavery memory (Miranda 2022). However, until the present date, the warehouse has remained empty.

Fig. 10

Urban form of the harbour region. The one-kilometre circles highlight the distances between Mauá Square (right) and the end of the Olympic Boulevard, where the Aquarium and Warehouse 7 are located. Future developments near Moinho Fluminense could enhance or destroy urban cohesion (Source: the author)

5 Discussions

The Rio Olympics are over, but the two promised centralities in the OPBdT and PM have not yet been fully consolidated. As sites that attract many people due to their specialized and diverse functions within urban regions, centralities fulfil the role of connecting people, activities, businesses, and the built environment (Zhong et al., 2017; Hillier 1999; Ewing and Handy 2009). Such conditions, however, cannot be dictated exclusively by design but rather by a process of creating and recreating the urban realm. Notably, the success of their implementation depends on both the design quality and governance. In this sense, urban design provides an important theoretical and empirical analysis framework and is crucial for consolidating both centralities as Olympic legacies.

The analysis of both case studies revealed the role of urban design (contextual and designed) and how aspects such as urban form, human scale, mixed uses, and cohesion of the urban fabric (which may also include heritage buildings) could help the consolidation of Olympic legacies as vibrant, sustainable, and used urbanities, as much as could efficient and effective implementation and management.

In this sense, the legacy of the OPBdT exhibits both design and process issues. Not only do games-mode spaces lack attractiveness for more every-day occupation, but they also exhibit a notable mismatch between the initial plans and governance actions since before the games. The political discontinuity without a substitute unifying governing actor and planning for the Olympic legacy also contributed to further deterioration in the arenas and the symbolic value of the place.

Table 1, aided by a systematic observation of criteria in loco, provides an analysis framework to assess Olympic urban legacies. This framework allows us to better understand the relationships among different physical urban design criteria and how they are reflected in terms of sociability within the urban space.

Table 1 suggests that the 2011 legacy design proposal for the Olympic Park as a neighbourhood would achieve ideal urbanity conditions, with all the aspects derived from urban design literature completely satisfied. However, such urbanisation does not have a date to start. In addition, the visits conducted in 2017 and 2019 revealed that the potential of the collective spaces of the park had not been fully examined. In 2023, the park closed again for the promised transformation of the Olympic Way. As such, the aspects must be analysed from two perspectives: first, the park is used as a recreational area, with arenas and open-air sites for leisure; second, the park is a developed quarter that has not yet been filled. Therefore, items such as ‘active façades’, ‘high density’, ‘mixed use’, ‘compact form’, ‘human scale’ and ‘cohesion of the urban fabric’ during the visits of the legacy sites refer only to the presence of large-scale arenas and not to the mixture of functions and buildings usually present in the city. Hence, these criteria can be ranked from 1 to 2, apart from ‘mixed use’, which scored a value of 3 in 2019, due to the opening of an arena for SESC activities. The recent inauguration of a school in Arena 3 also contributed to this aspect. However, even if not fully urbanized, the park could have already encompassed higher-quality green areas and exhibited a higher degree of walkability. Regarding the variety of tertiary spaces, the park comprised only temporary facilities during special events. Opposite the central area, bustling with a varied and dynamic tertiary sector, the park enabled more recreational and contemplative activities, instead of focusing on sidewalk cafés/restaurants or touristic sites—the highest of all areas analysed in Sacadura Cabral St and Mauá Square.

The future development of the park into a neighbourhood, as explained, is bound by urban legislation parameters, with a variety of possible urban form outcomes. The different morphologies allowed by the legal parameters shown in Fig. 5 support distinct urban life possibilities, especially in terms of walkability, mixed use, legibility and interaction at the street level. The model chosen by investors remains unknown.

In contrast, there was significant improvement in the urban environment of the analysed areas in PM in terms of ambience (active façades and green areas), vitality (permanence and interaction among users) and diversity (variety of typologies, mixed use, and variety of tertiary spaces). All these aspects reflect a greater usability of spaces, as indicated in Table 1 for the analysis of Sacadura Cabral St. and the Olympic Boulevard, although the first site is more vivid and dynamic than is the second site. Enlarged sidewalks, a new system of public transport on rails, renovated public spaces, and the preservation of physical spaces that evoke the cultural heritage of the region can enhance the urban image of the city and the consolidation of urbanity and social interaction. Notably, the compact urban form and historical relevance of the area serve as binding elements for new activities and pedestrian use, whereas the long distances and isolated buildings in Barra da Tijuca render it a problematic environment to create a lively neighbourhood in the Olympic Park.

Part of the urban legacy success depends on the further use of venues and spaces that were once planned for the games. Similarly, the resilience of urban areas and historical buildings depends on a renovated, continuous movement of promoting new uses and appropriation by users. As noted, this further use depends on governance and design.

The degree to which people value certain Olympic areas (including Olympic heritage sites) also depends, however, on the success of the event itself (Kiuri and Teller 2015), which is linked to citizen participation and political support for the games. Hence, urban design, as a process of designing cities, is related to whether and how places are regarded as part of the memory of the city. The OPBdT could become an important Olympic heritage site if proper design and governance follow in subsequent years, which could include sport education and practice on the premises. It could be argued that temporary venues may prevent Olympic heritage sites from being celebrated in the future. However, they could allow for much-needed flexibility in legacy mode. A look at Olympic heritage sites would then exceed the tangible aspect of construction and reinforce other values associated with the mega-event, which may also occur in existing structures that were not initially planned for sport uses.

6 Conclusions

In this paper, the initial Olympic legacy of two main areas was investigated after the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Through the established theoretical framework and empirical in loco analysis, it was demonstrated that urban design plays a major role in shaping the possible relationships between society and the built environment and, therefore, is crucial to the conversion of Olympic Parks and other Olympic structures into enjoyable long-lasting legacies.

As noted, places better integrated into their urban context and with high-quality design features exhibited higher levels of social interaction and permanence at the street level, even in short-term analysis. We also indicated how historic and industrial structures can represent valuable assets in Olympic legacy transformation, with continuous administration and investment needed. Spaces designed for the human scale, with suitable green public areas and a mixture of typologies allowing different uses to emerge over time, exhibit greater chances to succeed as lively and dynamic urbanities than those that do not account for such principles. In this sense, the conversion of the OPBdT into a neighbourhood should promote more compact types of urban forms—as observed in Rio’s older neighbourhoods, including those of PM—to create a more appealing and lively urbanity. As such, it could provide an alternative to the sprawled, monotonous character of the urban environment of Barra da Tijuca, also aiming for urban sustainability, which could yield a notable urban impact at the metropolitan scale.

Notably, the success of Olympic areas in legacy mode must acknowledge urban design in terms of design and process, both as qualities of the built environment and governance and implementation issues, which impose interrelated effects in terms of the correlation of the plans with the social realm. Part of the challenge of having two centralities resulting from the Rio Olympics lies in the competition for private investments and the consolidation of varied activities in different urban forms. As observed, the different urbanisation models adopted over the years in each of the areas have greatly affected the uses and ambience provided by their urban spaces.

The role of the state in promoting subsidized schemes for housing and varied institutional (e.g., educational, cultural, and governmental) uses to these centralities is paramount, and the balance between public- and private-sector-led activities will encourage new flows of people and consolidate both areas as urban centralities. However, to achieve the above, both sectors must account for the effect of the urban form in the creation of more democratic and sustainable urban environments, especially in new developments within the OPBdT, which could represent a turning point for the regional urban character but also within the PM area that is currently under dispute. Finally, the cases highlighted the importance of acknowledging and embracing preexisting cultural and historical processes in designing urban spaces, which contributes to creating a sense of belonging and participation in transformation processes.