explorations

  • Might she go down today?

  • Barcelona, Tbilisi, Bordeaux: Notes Towards a Vertical Public Space

  • Nami Gradolí Giner

  • May 13, 2026

With Might she come down today?, presented in the white gallery in April 2026, Spanish architect Nami Gradolí Giner explored the usability of shared spaces in collective housing in relation to their users. Her working method combines observations, explorations, interviews, photographic surveys, and video documentaries. Initiated in Sarajevo in 2018, her research then focused on Barcelona, ​​notably for her graduation project, and subsequently on Tbilisi since 2025, and, during her residency at arc en rêve, in Bordeaux.

In 2021, adapting housing—particularly for the elderly—was the subject of Nami Gradolí Giner's thesis, prepared with Adriana Núñez Alfaro. Studying the Nou Barris district of Barcelona, ​​the two aspiring architects identified building typologies lacking elevators. Whether due to a lack of resources, residents on lower floors refusing to pay for access to upper levels, or spatial arrangements complicating the situation, they explored a variety of scenarios and proposed tailored solutions to alleviate the isolation of older people. Their project, 67 Steps, was nominated for the EUmies Young Talent Architecture Award. In 2023, with an expanded team, they began a documentary to further their research and gather insightful testimonies from Isabel, Rosa, Rosita, Consuelo,… Since 2025, Nami Gradolí Giner has been developing mi/SHENEBA, a project documenting vertical circulation structures and extensions in Tbilisi, Georgia. This topic, which resonates with that of Barcelona, ​​examines the informal architectural solutions developed by residents to compensate for the lack of comfort in collective housing, sometimes left abandoned for nearly 20 years following the fall of the Soviet bloc. Ingenious systems emerged at the initiative of tenants in large post-war buildings: sharing an elevator between three blocks using walkways, increasing the density of outdoor spaces, paying per elevator ride, or using pulleys to hoist groceries, etc. During her residency in Bordeaux, Nami Gradolí Giner shifted her focus to the city, searching for relevant cases developed by architects to rehabilitate or build social housing while improving usability, comfort, and accessibility. She also began work on a building belonging to the social housing provider Aquitanis that lacked an elevator. In the following article, she offers a comparative perspective on the three situations explored to date, enriching her research with each new case. • Fanny Léglise

Vue de l'exposition / exhibition view.
Vue de l'exposition / exhibition view. / © Emmanuelle Maura pour arc en rêve

Barcelona : the staircase as a filter

During the Spanish postwar period, Barcelona received waves of migration while facing a severe housing shortage. Between the 1950s and 1970s, minimum housing estates —polígonos de vivienda1— were built across its peripheries. They offered formal homes after the precariousness of the barracas2, yet their rigid models now reveal limits in energy performance and accessibility: buildings ageing with the people inside them.

Vue de rue d’un ensemble de logements collectifs à Verdum, Barcelone, vers les années 1960. L’image documente le paysage urbain initial des ensembles de logements de l’après-guerre dans le quartier de Nou Barris. / Street view of collective housing in Verdum, Barcelona, c. 1960s. The image documents the early urban landscape of postwar housing estates in Nou Barris.
Vue de rue d’un ensemble de logements collectifs à Verdum, Barcelone, vers les années 1960. L’image documente le paysage urbain initial des ensembles de logements de l’après-guerre dans le quartier de Nou Barris. / Street view of collective housing in Verdum, Barcelona, c. 1960s. The image documents the early urban landscape of postwar housing estates in Nou Barris. / Archive document consisting of a catalogue card and photograph by P. Peñalver, record F-15-3992, “Calle Almansa”. Reproduced from archival material collected by N. Gradolí Giner for the 67 Steps research project. Original held at Centro de Estudios Populares Roquetes.

What once expanded access to housing now restricts access to urban life: the staircase becomes the filter between home and street. What appears individual is structural: a mass housing stock built as if bodies would remain forever autonomous. Here, the lack of accessibility not only restricts movement; it reorganizes care and dependency. Women often sustain care networks, manage homes, help neighbors and relatives, and age alone at home. Counting steps, pulling trolleys, staring through windows, relying on neighbors’ visits or hacking the inaccessible with improvised devices: filmed gestures3 reveal how architecture can connect or isolate. We assume homes are connected to urban networks: water, electricity, and data flow almost without friction. But what about mobility? Does access to the city begin only once we reach the street?

67 steps: that is what Dolores (93) must descend every time she wants to leave her home. She has lived in the same walk-up building since 1957. Every morning, she gets ready, closes the door, holds onto the handrail, and begins the countdown. Each landing becomes a pause. Counting is not a game; it is a way of measuring effort.

In Spain’s regulated and privatized housing context, fragmented co-ownership structures4 often turn a missing lift into a collective deadlock. Even when subsidies exist, they frequently require residents to advance costs before being reimbursed, excluding those with fewer economic resources. In 67 Steps5, the answer begins by shifting scale: from the isolated building to the block. Grouping several buildings makes it possible to share vertical cores, exterior walkways, and horizontal connections, redistributing access beyond each property line. These new housing models and shared programmes are inserted within the same block, turning the intervention itself into a support system for its transformation. They can provide temporary rehousing, generate economic value, and create spaces for care and encounter while the existing fabric remains inhabited. Accessibility thus becomes a phased process of spatial, financial, and institutional coordination: a public infrastructure that does not stop at the street, but reaches the home.

Une rampe faite à la main par le mari de Lidia relie la dernière barrière verticale entre l’appartement de Lidia (60 ans), situé au rez-de-chaussée, et la rue. / A handmade ramp built by Lidia’s husband bridges the last vertical barrier between Lidia’s (60) ground-floor apartment and the street.
Une rampe faite à la main par le mari de Lidia relie la dernière barrière verticale entre l’appartement de Lidia (60 ans), situé au rez-de-chaussée, et la rue. / A handmade ramp built by Lidia’s husband bridges the last vertical barrier between Lidia’s (60) ground-floor apartment and the street. / Photograph by N. Gradolí Giner, 2023. From the research project and audiovisual piece 67 Steps, co-directed with A. Núñez Alfar

Nearby, Isabel (71) has lived in the same apartment since the late 1960s. Five floors, no lift. For decades, the stairs were simply part of daily life. Now her husband can no longer use them. So she does it for both of them: the shopping, the errands, the everyday movements that keep life going. She has spent years trying to get a lift installed: meetings, votes, paperwork, mazes of bureaucracy, unreachable subsidies. More and more often, she thinks about leaving. But where?

Isabel (71 ans) vit dans le même appartement sans ascenseur depuis les années 1960. / Isabel (71) has been living in the same walk-up apartment since the 60’s.
Isabel (71 ans) vit dans le même appartement sans ascenseur depuis les années 1960. / Isabel (71) has been living in the same walk-up apartment since the 60’s. / Photo by Nami Gradolí Giner, 2023. for 67 Steps, co-directed with Adriana Núñez Alfaro.

Ana (90) lives on a fourth floor. She has not used the stairs in weeks. Speaking through the window, half joking, half serious, she says she lives in a state of “permanent confinement”.

From this architectural response, the research turned toward other contexts to ask what forms of adaptation –informal, collective, institutional– emerge when inherited mass housing no longer fits the lives unfolding inside it.

Troisième espace de (dé)connexion : le foyer. Le salon d’un habitant de Verdum, à Barcelone, où la vie domestique est de plus en plus façonnée par la possibilité – ou l’impossibilité – d’atteindre la rue. / Third space of dis/connection: the home. The living room of a resident in Verdum, Barcelona, where domestic life becomes increasingly shaped by the possibility —or impossibility— of reaching the street
Troisième espace de (dé)connexion : le foyer. Le salon d’un habitant de Verdum, à Barcelone, où la vie domestique est de plus en plus façonnée par la possibilité – ou l’impossibilité – d’atteindre la rue. / Third space of dis/connection: the home. The living room of a resident in Verdum, Barcelona, where domestic life becomes increasingly shaped by the possibility —or impossibility— of reaching the street / Still from the unreleased documentary film 67 Steps, directed by N. Gradolí Giner and A. Núñez Alfaro. DOP: Pol Subirà and Júlia Llançana.
Une habitante monte vers la terrasse du toit d’un immeuble sans ascenseur à La Prosperitat, à Barcelone. N’étant plus en mesure de descendre dans la rue, elle ne peut que se déplacer vers le haut, transformant la terrasse en l’un des rares espaces restants d’accès et de rencontre. / A resident climbs toward the rooftop terrace in a walk-up housing block in La Prosperitat, Barcelona. No longer able to go down to the street, she can only move upward, turning the terrace into one of the few remaining spaces of access and encounter.
Une habitante monte vers la terrasse du toit d’un immeuble sans ascenseur à La Prosperitat, à Barcelone. N’étant plus en mesure de descendre dans la rue, elle ne peut que se déplacer vers le haut, transformant la terrasse en l’un des rares espaces restants d’accès et de rencontre. / A resident climbs toward the rooftop terrace in a walk-up housing block in La Prosperitat, Barcelona. No longer able to go down to the street, she can only move upward, turning the terrace into one of the few remaining spaces of access and encounter. / Still from the unreleased documentary film 67 Steps, directed by N. Gradolí Giner and A. Núñez Alfaro. DOP: Pol Subirà and Júlia Llançana.
Vue actuelle des ensembles de logements de l’après-guerre à Verdum, Barcelone. / Current view of the postwar housing estates in Verdum, Barcelona.
Vue actuelle des ensembles de logements de l’après-guerre à Verdum, Barcelone. / Current view of the postwar housing estates in Verdum, Barcelona. / Still from the unreleased documentary film 67 Steps, directed by N. Gradolí Giner and A. Núñez Alfaro. DOP: Pol Subirà and Júlia Llançana.

Tbilissi : housing in transformation

In Tbilisi, similar walk-up typologies flourished during the 1960s: the khrushchovkas6. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, their minimal cells entered a vacuum where public maintenance, legal clarity, and institutional provision largely disappeared. Faced with economic precarity and loose regulation, residents became accidental architects, treating the housing block not as a finished object, but as a structure open to negotiation, transformation, and need.

Structure collective de misheneba dans le district de Saburtalo, à Tbilissi. / Collective misheneba structure in the Saburtalo district, Tbilisi.
Structure collective de misheneba dans le district de Saburtalo, à Tbilissi. / Collective misheneba structure in the Saburtalo district, Tbilisi. / Still from footage filmed by N. Gradolí Giner, March–May 2025. From the fieldwork for the mi / SHENEBA research project, developed with Dea Khizanishvili.
Processus de construction des premiers blocs de khrushchovkas sur l’avenue Vazha-Pshavela, à Tbilissi, 1964. Vue aérienne montrant le développement du district de Saburtalo et l’émergence d’immeubles d’habitation standardisés sans ascenseur. / Construction process of the first Khrushchovka blocks on Vazha-Pshavela Avenue, Tbilisi, 1964. Aerial view showing the development of the Saburtalo district and the emergence of standardized walk-up housing blocks.
Processus de construction des premiers blocs de khrushchovkas sur l’avenue Vazha-Pshavela, à Tbilissi, 1964. Vue aérienne montrant le développement du district de Saburtalo et l’émergence d’immeubles d’habitation standardisés sans ascenseur. / Construction process of the first Khrushchovka blocks on Vazha-Pshavela Avenue, Tbilisi, 1964. Aerial view showing the development of the Saburtalo district and the emergence of standardized walk-up housing blocks. / Photograph by Givi Kikvadze, 1964. Reproduced from the National Archives of Georgia.

Misheneba7, dasheneba8, and amosheneba9 describe different ways of adding, extending, or enclosing space. Some interventions appeared as fragile individual additions; others took collective form: frameworks of pillars and beams built by neighbors, then gradually filled in as each household could afford it. Some dashenebas also operated as economic devices, producing space whose value could help finance further transformations, including lifts.

This logic also reached circulation. External staircases through courtyards, façade-mounted elevators, paid-per-use lifts, and improvised links between buildings turned vertical mobility into a negotiated infrastructure. Alongside these informal devices, Nutsubidze Plato10 offers another precedent: a late-Soviet experiment in which three towers were connected by aerial bridges to share one elevator core.

Dodo (87) lives on the fifth floor of a Soviet-era Khrushchovka. In the 1990s, she was the one who led the extension. She managed to bring the neighbors together so they could expand their apartments through a shared framework of beams and pillars, transforming the building from within. They could not afford a lift. Now Dodo uses a rope and pulley to lift groceries from the street to her balcony.

Dodo (87 ans) hisse ses courses à l’aide d’une corde depuis le balcon de sa khrushchovka sans ascenseur à Saburtalo, à Tbilissi. En l’absence d’ascenseur, la poulie devient une connexion verticale improvisée entre la rue et le logement. / Dodo (87) pulls her groceries up with a rope from the balcony of her walk-up khrushchovka in Saburtalo, Tbilisi. In the absence of a lift, the pulley becomes an improvised vertical connection between the street and the home.
Dodo (87 ans) hisse ses courses à l’aide d’une corde depuis le balcon de sa khrushchovka sans ascenseur à Saburtalo, à Tbilissi. En l’absence d’ascenseur, la poulie devient une connexion verticale improvisée entre la rue et le logement. / Dodo (87) pulls her groceries up with a rope from the balcony of her walk-up khrushchovka in Saburtalo, Tbilisi. In the absence of a lift, the pulley becomes an improvised vertical connection between the street and the home. / Stills from footage filmed by N. Gradolí Giner, March–May 2025. From the fieldwork for the mi / SHENEBA research project, developed with Dea Khizanishvili.

In another building, Mirtsa (91) moves slowly through her home with the help of a cane. Since she no longer goes downstairs, she spends part of the day by the window: trees swaying, a neighbor watering the plants, cars passing, passengers coming and going.

Ascenseur payant à l’usage dans un immeuble d’habitation de l’époque soviétique, à Tbilissi. Après le retrait des systèmes d’entretien publics, les habitants ont mis en place des mécanismes à pièces afin de financer la maintenance des ascenseurs partagés, transformant la mobilité verticale en une infrastructure négociée et transactionnelle. / Paid-per-use elevator in a Soviet-era housing block, Tbilisi. After the withdrawal of state maintenance systems, residents introduced coin-operated mechanisms as a way to fund the upkeep of shared lifts, turning vertical mobility into a negotiated and transactional infrastructure.
Ascenseur payant à l’usage dans un immeuble d’habitation de l’époque soviétique, à Tbilissi. Après le retrait des systèmes d’entretien publics, les habitants ont mis en place des mécanismes à pièces afin de financer la maintenance des ascenseurs partagés, transformant la mobilité verticale en une infrastructure négociée et transactionnelle. / Paid-per-use elevator in a Soviet-era housing block, Tbilisi. After the withdrawal of state maintenance systems, residents introduced coin-operated mechanisms as a way to fund the upkeep of shared lifts, turning vertical mobility into a negotiated and transactional infrastructure. / Photograph by N. Gradolí Giner, March–May 2025. From the fieldwork for the mi / SHENEBA research project, developed with Dea Khizanishvili.

Darkness, privatized commons, and structural uncertainty prevent any romantic reading of Tbilisi’s informal growth. Yet this landscape reveals a recurring repertoire of adaptation, where buildings are constantly adjusted to changing lives. Between Barcelona’s static hyper-regulation and Tbilisi’s radical informality, the research begins to look for grey zones: forms of transformation open enough to adapt, but supported enough to remain safe.

Passerelles aériennes dans les tours du plateau de Nutsubidze, Saburtalo, Tbilissi. Conçues par les architectes Otar Kalandarishvili et Gizo Potskhishvili, ces passerelles relient trois tours en hauteur, leur permettant de partager un noyau de circulation verticale. / Aerial walkways in the towers of Nutsubidze Plato, Saburtalo, Tbilisi. Designed by architects Otar Kalandarishvili and Gizo Potskhishvili, the bridges connect three towers at height, allowing them to share a vertical circulation core.
Passerelles aériennes dans les tours du plateau de Nutsubidze, Saburtalo, Tbilissi. Conçues par les architectes Otar Kalandarishvili et Gizo Potskhishvili, ces passerelles relient trois tours en hauteur, leur permettant de partager un noyau de circulation verticale. / Aerial walkways in the towers of Nutsubidze Plato, Saburtalo, Tbilisi. Designed by architects Otar Kalandarishvili and Gizo Potskhishvili, the bridges connect three towers at height, allowing them to share a vertical circulation core. / Photograph by N. Gradolí Giner, March–May 2025. From the fieldwork for the mi / SHENEBA research project, developed with Dea Khizanishvili.
Éléments de connexion à travers la cour intérieure d’un immeuble d’habitation, à Tbilissi. Escaliers extérieurs, passerelles et liaisons improvisées relient différents volumes par la cour, transformant l’espace résiduel entre les bâtiments en une infrastructure d’accès négociée. / Connection elements across the inner courtyard of a housing block, Tbilisi. External stairs, walkways, and improvised links connect different volumes through the courtyard, turning the residual space between buildings into a negotiated infrastructure of access.
Éléments de connexion à travers la cour intérieure d’un immeuble d’habitation, à Tbilissi. Escaliers extérieurs, passerelles et liaisons improvisées relient différents volumes par la cour, transformant l’espace résiduel entre les bâtiments en une infrastructure d’accès négociée. / Connection elements across the inner courtyard of a housing block, Tbilisi. External stairs, walkways, and improvised links connect different volumes through the courtyard, turning the residual space between buildings into a negotiated infrastructure of access. / Photograph by N. Gradolí Giner, March–May 2025. From the fieldwork for the mi / SHENEBA research project, developed with Dea Khizanishvili.

Bordeaux : toward a vertical public space

Bordeaux opened another position between Barcelona and Tbilisi. The same walk-up condition appears in historic co-owned buildings and social housing estates, but the frameworks for intervention differ. In parts of the social housing stock, actors such as Aquitanis11 hold a more concentrated capacity to intervene, making collective transformation easier to imagine than in fragmented co-ownership structures.

Table de recherche pour l’exposition à arc en rêve, Bordeaux, centrée sur les immeubles du cours Balguerie Stuttenberg, avec des matériaux d’archives collectés par Rita Mercado. / Research table for the exhibition at arc en rêve, Bordeaux, focused on the housing blocks at cours Balguerie Stuttenberg, with archival materials collected by Rita Mercado.
Table de recherche pour l’exposition à arc en rêve, Bordeaux, centrée sur les immeubles du cours Balguerie Stuttenberg, avec des matériaux d’archives collectés par Rita Mercado. / Research table for the exhibition at arc en rêve, Bordeaux, focused on the housing blocks at cours Balguerie Stuttenberg, with archival materials collected by Rita Mercado. / Research and photography by N. Gradolí Giner, 2026.

During the residency at arc en rêve, projects such as Grand Parc, Claveau, and Beutre12 offered ways of transforming existing housing without erasing it: adding space, working phase by phase, improving comfort and energy performance, and minimizing displacement. Yet accessibility often remains secondary. If buildings are already being expanded, insulated, and reconfigured, could vertical mobility become part of the same agenda? Could shared circulation systems and activated courtyards turn accessibility into a common infrastructure?

Projections sur la façade de la cour intérieure du 252 cours Balguerie Stuttenberg, Bordeaux. Développée lors de la résidence à arc en rêve, avec l’assistance de Rita Mercado. / Projection mapping on the inner courtyard façade of 252 cours Balguerie Stuttenberg, Bordeaux. Developed during the residency at arc en rêve, with the assistance of Rita Mercado.
Projections sur la façade de la cour intérieure du 252 cours Balguerie Stuttenberg, Bordeaux. Développée lors de la résidence à arc en rêve, avec l’assistance de Rita Mercado. / Projection mapping on the inner courtyard façade of 252 cours Balguerie Stuttenberg, Bordeaux. Developed during the residency at arc en rêve, with the assistance of Rita Mercado. / Photographs by N. Gradolí Giner, 2026.

76 steps. Conchita (80) has lived for more than fifty years in a 1950s building, later acquired by Aquitanis as social housing. She loves her bright apartment, the limestone façade, the garden, and the neighbourhood. But as her body slows down, the stairs that once connected her to the street have become heavier. She is considering moving, although she does not want to leave the home where she has spent most of her life.

The exhibition Descendra-t-elle aujourd’hui ? placed Barcelona, Tbilisi, and Bordeaux in relation, not as models to compare or replicate, but as situations from which to think collectively about ageing buildings, changing bodies, and possible forms of transformation. It also became a space for making visible realities that often remain unseen: domestic, dispersed, and silent. From here, the work opens toward the PhD research I am beginning: a broader constellation of inherited housing contexts where spatial, economic, and collective forms of transformation have been tested. As a next step, Belgrade and the Russian Pavilions13 offer a case where the “air” above existing buildings was treated as a spatial and economic resource.

Through these cases, the research begins to formulate the idea of vertical public space14: the possibility that the vertical space between buildings —often residual, private, or purely technical— could become a shared field of access, care, maintenance, and collective life.

Cour intérieure des immeubles du cours Balguerie Stuttenberg – lieu de projection et espace potentiel pour de futures connexions verticales et interventions collectives en matière d’accessibilité. / Inner courtyard of the housing blocks at cours Balguerie Stuttenberg — the site of the projection mapping and a potential space for future vertical connections and collective accessibility interventions.
Cour intérieure des immeubles du cours Balguerie Stuttenberg – lieu de projection et espace potentiel pour de futures connexions verticales et interventions collectives en matière d’accessibilité. / Inner courtyard of the housing blocks at cours Balguerie Stuttenberg — the site of the projection mapping and a potential space for future vertical connections and collective accessibility interventions. / Still from footage filmed by Nami Gradolí during the residency at arc en rêve, Bordeaux.
Installation audiovisuelle à arc en rêve. À travers des récits intimes et une écoute située, le dispositif explorait la manière dont les récits personnels peuvent relier l’expérience incarnée, la mémoire et la transformation spatiale. / Audiovisual installation at arc en rêve. Through intimate stories and situated listening, the display explored how personal narratives can connect embodied experience, memory and spatial transformation.
Installation audiovisuelle à arc en rêve. À travers des récits intimes et une écoute située, le dispositif explorait la manière dont les récits personnels peuvent relier l’expérience incarnée, la mémoire et la transformation spatiale. / Audiovisual installation at arc en rêve. Through intimate stories and situated listening, the display explored how personal narratives can connect embodied experience, memory and spatial transformation. / © Nami Gradolí Giner
  1. In Spain, polígonos de vivienda refers to large-scale residential estates built on the urban periphery during the mid-twentieth century, often through repetitive blocks, minimum housing standards, and walk-up typologies. Conceived as a rapid response to housing shortages and rural-to-urban migration, they produced new working-class neighborhoods, frequently disconnected from consolidated urban fabrics and services. ↗
  2. Informal self-built settlements that housed thousands of migrant families in Barcelona during the postwar decades, including large settlements in Somorrostro, Montjuïc, and other peripheral areas of the city. ↗
  3. The architectural research initiated through 67 Steps later expanded into a documentary project, using film to register everyday gestures, bodily effort, and forms of care that architectural drawings could not fully capture. Its methodology draws on visual ethnography, understood here as a way of engaging with lived experience through images, observation, and situated encounters. See Sarah Pink, Doing Visual Ethnography, 4th ed., SAGE, 2021. ↗
  4. In Spain, apartment buildings are often organized through a co-ownership structure: dwellings belong to individual owners, while land, structure, staircases, façades, roofs, and other shared elements belong collectively to the community of owners. Any intervention affecting these common parts therefore depends on agreements between multiple private owners. ↗
  5. 67 Steps refers here to 67 graons i un pati d’illa, master’s thesis research project on accessibility, ageing, and postwar housing in Barcelona. The project explores how walk-up blocks, once associated with access to modern housing, now require collective transformation as their inhabitants age. ↗
  6. Khrushchovkas are low-cost, standardized apartment blocks built across the Soviet Union from the late 1950s onward, especially under Nikita Khrushchev’s housing programme. Usually five storeys high and built with prefabricated elements, they provided compact private apartments quickly and cheaply. ↗
  7. Misheneba / მიშენება: lateral extension; an added volume attached to the façade that expands the dwelling horizontally. ↗
  8. Dasheneba / დაშენება: vertical addition; the construction of new floors or volumes above an existing building. ↗
  9. Amosheneba / ამოშენება: enclosure or infill; the closing of balconies, terraces, or voids to incorporate them into the interior. ↗
  10. Nutsubidze Plato is a late-Soviet residential complex in Tbilisi, designed by Otar Kalandarishvili and Gizo Potskhishvili in the 1970s, where three towers are connected by aerial bridges sharing one elevator core. ↗
  11. Aquitanis is a social housing provider in Bordeaux. In this research, it appears as an example of a more concentrated ownership and management structure, allowing interventions at a collective scale. ↗
  12. Grand Parc (Lacaton & Vassal, Frédéric Druot, Christophe Hutin) expands dwellings through winter gardens and balconies, improving living conditions without displacing residents. Claveau (Nicole Concordet) works with the existing through precision, economy of means, and case-by-case adaptation, with a focus on energy improvement. Beutre (Christophe Hutin) adds space and new layers of inhabitation while preserving the informal and personal character of the rear façades. ↗
  13. The Russian Pavilions in Belgrade are explored here through Dubravka Sekulić’s Glotzt Nicht so Romantisch! On Extralegal Space in Belgrade, which analyzes their roof extensions as an extralegal process negotiated between inhabitants, developers, municipalities, and shifting legal frameworks. The case opens questions about the “air” above existing buildings as a spatial and economic resource: a potential means to finance renovation, improve vertical access, and redistribute collective benefit. ↗
  14. Vertical public space is a working concept first explored by Nami Gradolí Giner in her bachelor’s thesis, La ventana: un refugio encontrado, and now proposed as a line of inquiry for her emerging PhD research. It refers to the vertical, often residual space between buildings —the gap between home and street, façade and courtyard, private interior and collective exterior— that can be occupied, activated, or transformed through stairs, lifts, landings, bridges, walkways, windows, and elevated connections. Rather than treating these elements as merely technical devices, the concept understands them as possible supports for accessibility, visibility, care, maintenance, and collective life: infrastructures of connection between the home, the body, and wider networks of mobility and care. ↗

Nami Gradolí Giner

Nami Gradolí Giner is an architect and researcher based between Valencia and Barcelona. Her work explores how older housing typologies — particularly post-war housing and mass housing — respond to contemporary vulnerabilities such as ageing, inaccessibility and climate risks. She approaches architecture as a practice that is both spatial and political, combining visual ethnography, technical analysis and participatory formats to document lived experience and open up debates rooted in everyday life. She frequently works with film as a research tool and as a means of facilitating collective conversations around housing.

Nami is currently working as an architect at the firm Gradolí & Sanz Arquitectes and is about to begin her PhD at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, focusing on collective strategies for adapting housing to address accessibility issues and other vulnerabilities in Southern Europe. This project forms part of the Ad Hoc Residencies programme organised in collaboration with LINA European Architecture Platform.

see the archive
Vue de l'exposition / exhibition view.
Vue de l'exposition / exhibition view. / © Emmanuelle Maura pour arc en rêve
Vue de rue d’un ensemble de logements collectifs à Verdum, Barcelone, vers les années 1960. L’image documente le paysage urbain initial des ensembles de logements de l’après-guerre dans le quartier de Nou Barris. / Street view of collective housing in Verdum, Barcelona, c. 1960s. The image documents the early urban landscape of postwar housing estates in Nou Barris.
Vue de rue d’un ensemble de logements collectifs à Verdum, Barcelone, vers les années 1960. L’image documente le paysage urbain initial des ensembles de logements de l’après-guerre dans le quartier de Nou Barris. / Street view of collective housing in Verdum, Barcelona, c. 1960s. The image documents the early urban landscape of postwar housing estates in Nou Barris. / Archive document consisting of a catalogue card and photograph by P. Peñalver, record F-15-3992, “Calle Almansa”. Reproduced from archival material collected by N. Gradolí Giner for the 67 Steps research project. Original held at Centro de Estudios Populares Roquetes.
Une rampe faite à la main par le mari de Lidia relie la dernière barrière verticale entre l’appartement de Lidia (60 ans), situé au rez-de-chaussée, et la rue. / A handmade ramp built by Lidia’s husband bridges the last vertical barrier between Lidia’s (60) ground-floor apartment and the street.
Une rampe faite à la main par le mari de Lidia relie la dernière barrière verticale entre l’appartement de Lidia (60 ans), situé au rez-de-chaussée, et la rue. / A handmade ramp built by Lidia’s husband bridges the last vertical barrier between Lidia’s (60) ground-floor apartment and the street. / Photograph by N. Gradolí Giner, 2023. From the research project and audiovisual piece 67 Steps, co-directed with A. Núñez Alfar
Isabel (71 ans) vit dans le même appartement sans ascenseur depuis les années 1960. / Isabel (71) has been living in the same walk-up apartment since the 60’s.
Isabel (71 ans) vit dans le même appartement sans ascenseur depuis les années 1960. / Isabel (71) has been living in the same walk-up apartment since the 60’s. / Photo by Nami Gradolí Giner, 2023. for 67 Steps, co-directed with Adriana Núñez Alfaro.
Troisième espace de (dé)connexion : le foyer. Le salon d’un habitant de Verdum, à Barcelone, où la vie domestique est de plus en plus façonnée par la possibilité – ou l’impossibilité – d’atteindre la rue. / Third space of dis/connection: the home. The living room of a resident in Verdum, Barcelona, where domestic life becomes increasingly shaped by the possibility —or impossibility— of reaching the street
Troisième espace de (dé)connexion : le foyer. Le salon d’un habitant de Verdum, à Barcelone, où la vie domestique est de plus en plus façonnée par la possibilité – ou l’impossibilité – d’atteindre la rue. / Third space of dis/connection: the home. The living room of a resident in Verdum, Barcelona, where domestic life becomes increasingly shaped by the possibility —or impossibility— of reaching the street / Still from the unreleased documentary film 67 Steps, directed by N. Gradolí Giner and A. Núñez Alfaro. DOP: Pol Subirà and Júlia Llançana.
Une habitante monte vers la terrasse du toit d’un immeuble sans ascenseur à La Prosperitat, à Barcelone. N’étant plus en mesure de descendre dans la rue, elle ne peut que se déplacer vers le haut, transformant la terrasse en l’un des rares espaces restants d’accès et de rencontre. / A resident climbs toward the rooftop terrace in a walk-up housing block in La Prosperitat, Barcelona. No longer able to go down to the street, she can only move upward, turning the terrace into one of the few remaining spaces of access and encounter.
Une habitante monte vers la terrasse du toit d’un immeuble sans ascenseur à La Prosperitat, à Barcelone. N’étant plus en mesure de descendre dans la rue, elle ne peut que se déplacer vers le haut, transformant la terrasse en l’un des rares espaces restants d’accès et de rencontre. / A resident climbs toward the rooftop terrace in a walk-up housing block in La Prosperitat, Barcelona. No longer able to go down to the street, she can only move upward, turning the terrace into one of the few remaining spaces of access and encounter. / Still from the unreleased documentary film 67 Steps, directed by N. Gradolí Giner and A. Núñez Alfaro. DOP: Pol Subirà and Júlia Llançana.
Vue actuelle des ensembles de logements de l’après-guerre à Verdum, Barcelone. / Current view of the postwar housing estates in Verdum, Barcelona.
Vue actuelle des ensembles de logements de l’après-guerre à Verdum, Barcelone. / Current view of the postwar housing estates in Verdum, Barcelona. / Still from the unreleased documentary film 67 Steps, directed by N. Gradolí Giner and A. Núñez Alfaro. DOP: Pol Subirà and Júlia Llançana.
Structure collective de misheneba dans le district de Saburtalo, à Tbilissi. / Collective misheneba structure in the Saburtalo district, Tbilisi.
Structure collective de misheneba dans le district de Saburtalo, à Tbilissi. / Collective misheneba structure in the Saburtalo district, Tbilisi. / Still from footage filmed by N. Gradolí Giner, March–May 2025. From the fieldwork for the mi / SHENEBA research project, developed with Dea Khizanishvili.
Processus de construction des premiers blocs de khrushchovkas sur l’avenue Vazha-Pshavela, à Tbilissi, 1964. Vue aérienne montrant le développement du district de Saburtalo et l’émergence d’immeubles d’habitation standardisés sans ascenseur. / Construction process of the first Khrushchovka blocks on Vazha-Pshavela Avenue, Tbilisi, 1964. Aerial view showing the development of the Saburtalo district and the emergence of standardized walk-up housing blocks.
Processus de construction des premiers blocs de khrushchovkas sur l’avenue Vazha-Pshavela, à Tbilissi, 1964. Vue aérienne montrant le développement du district de Saburtalo et l’émergence d’immeubles d’habitation standardisés sans ascenseur. / Construction process of the first Khrushchovka blocks on Vazha-Pshavela Avenue, Tbilisi, 1964. Aerial view showing the development of the Saburtalo district and the emergence of standardized walk-up housing blocks. / Photograph by Givi Kikvadze, 1964. Reproduced from the National Archives of Georgia.
Dodo (87 ans) hisse ses courses à l’aide d’une corde depuis le balcon de sa khrushchovka sans ascenseur à Saburtalo, à Tbilissi. En l’absence d’ascenseur, la poulie devient une connexion verticale improvisée entre la rue et le logement. / Dodo (87) pulls her groceries up with a rope from the balcony of her walk-up khrushchovka in Saburtalo, Tbilisi. In the absence of a lift, the pulley becomes an improvised vertical connection between the street and the home.
Dodo (87 ans) hisse ses courses à l’aide d’une corde depuis le balcon de sa khrushchovka sans ascenseur à Saburtalo, à Tbilissi. En l’absence d’ascenseur, la poulie devient une connexion verticale improvisée entre la rue et le logement. / Dodo (87) pulls her groceries up with a rope from the balcony of her walk-up khrushchovka in Saburtalo, Tbilisi. In the absence of a lift, the pulley becomes an improvised vertical connection between the street and the home. / Stills from footage filmed by N. Gradolí Giner, March–May 2025. From the fieldwork for the mi / SHENEBA research project, developed with Dea Khizanishvili.
Ascenseur payant à l’usage dans un immeuble d’habitation de l’époque soviétique, à Tbilissi. Après le retrait des systèmes d’entretien publics, les habitants ont mis en place des mécanismes à pièces afin de financer la maintenance des ascenseurs partagés, transformant la mobilité verticale en une infrastructure négociée et transactionnelle. / Paid-per-use elevator in a Soviet-era housing block, Tbilisi. After the withdrawal of state maintenance systems, residents introduced coin-operated mechanisms as a way to fund the upkeep of shared lifts, turning vertical mobility into a negotiated and transactional infrastructure.
Ascenseur payant à l’usage dans un immeuble d’habitation de l’époque soviétique, à Tbilissi. Après le retrait des systèmes d’entretien publics, les habitants ont mis en place des mécanismes à pièces afin de financer la maintenance des ascenseurs partagés, transformant la mobilité verticale en une infrastructure négociée et transactionnelle. / Paid-per-use elevator in a Soviet-era housing block, Tbilisi. After the withdrawal of state maintenance systems, residents introduced coin-operated mechanisms as a way to fund the upkeep of shared lifts, turning vertical mobility into a negotiated and transactional infrastructure. / Photograph by N. Gradolí Giner, March–May 2025. From the fieldwork for the mi / SHENEBA research project, developed with Dea Khizanishvili.
Passerelles aériennes dans les tours du plateau de Nutsubidze, Saburtalo, Tbilissi. Conçues par les architectes Otar Kalandarishvili et Gizo Potskhishvili, ces passerelles relient trois tours en hauteur, leur permettant de partager un noyau de circulation verticale. / Aerial walkways in the towers of Nutsubidze Plato, Saburtalo, Tbilisi. Designed by architects Otar Kalandarishvili and Gizo Potskhishvili, the bridges connect three towers at height, allowing them to share a vertical circulation core.
Passerelles aériennes dans les tours du plateau de Nutsubidze, Saburtalo, Tbilissi. Conçues par les architectes Otar Kalandarishvili et Gizo Potskhishvili, ces passerelles relient trois tours en hauteur, leur permettant de partager un noyau de circulation verticale. / Aerial walkways in the towers of Nutsubidze Plato, Saburtalo, Tbilisi. Designed by architects Otar Kalandarishvili and Gizo Potskhishvili, the bridges connect three towers at height, allowing them to share a vertical circulation core. / Photograph by N. Gradolí Giner, March–May 2025. From the fieldwork for the mi / SHENEBA research project, developed with Dea Khizanishvili.
Éléments de connexion à travers la cour intérieure d’un immeuble d’habitation, à Tbilissi. Escaliers extérieurs, passerelles et liaisons improvisées relient différents volumes par la cour, transformant l’espace résiduel entre les bâtiments en une infrastructure d’accès négociée. / Connection elements across the inner courtyard of a housing block, Tbilisi. External stairs, walkways, and improvised links connect different volumes through the courtyard, turning the residual space between buildings into a negotiated infrastructure of access.
Éléments de connexion à travers la cour intérieure d’un immeuble d’habitation, à Tbilissi. Escaliers extérieurs, passerelles et liaisons improvisées relient différents volumes par la cour, transformant l’espace résiduel entre les bâtiments en une infrastructure d’accès négociée. / Connection elements across the inner courtyard of a housing block, Tbilisi. External stairs, walkways, and improvised links connect different volumes through the courtyard, turning the residual space between buildings into a negotiated infrastructure of access. / Photograph by N. Gradolí Giner, March–May 2025. From the fieldwork for the mi / SHENEBA research project, developed with Dea Khizanishvili.
Table de recherche pour l’exposition à arc en rêve, Bordeaux, centrée sur les immeubles du cours Balguerie Stuttenberg, avec des matériaux d’archives collectés par Rita Mercado. / Research table for the exhibition at arc en rêve, Bordeaux, focused on the housing blocks at cours Balguerie Stuttenberg, with archival materials collected by Rita Mercado.
Table de recherche pour l’exposition à arc en rêve, Bordeaux, centrée sur les immeubles du cours Balguerie Stuttenberg, avec des matériaux d’archives collectés par Rita Mercado. / Research table for the exhibition at arc en rêve, Bordeaux, focused on the housing blocks at cours Balguerie Stuttenberg, with archival materials collected by Rita Mercado. / Research and photography by N. Gradolí Giner, 2026.
Projections sur la façade de la cour intérieure du 252 cours Balguerie Stuttenberg, Bordeaux. Développée lors de la résidence à arc en rêve, avec l’assistance de Rita Mercado. / Projection mapping on the inner courtyard façade of 252 cours Balguerie Stuttenberg, Bordeaux. Developed during the residency at arc en rêve, with the assistance of Rita Mercado.
Projections sur la façade de la cour intérieure du 252 cours Balguerie Stuttenberg, Bordeaux. Développée lors de la résidence à arc en rêve, avec l’assistance de Rita Mercado. / Projection mapping on the inner courtyard façade of 252 cours Balguerie Stuttenberg, Bordeaux. Developed during the residency at arc en rêve, with the assistance of Rita Mercado. / Photographs by N. Gradolí Giner, 2026.
Cour intérieure des immeubles du cours Balguerie Stuttenberg – lieu de projection et espace potentiel pour de futures connexions verticales et interventions collectives en matière d’accessibilité. / Inner courtyard of the housing blocks at cours Balguerie Stuttenberg — the site of the projection mapping and a potential space for future vertical connections and collective accessibility interventions.
Cour intérieure des immeubles du cours Balguerie Stuttenberg – lieu de projection et espace potentiel pour de futures connexions verticales et interventions collectives en matière d’accessibilité. / Inner courtyard of the housing blocks at cours Balguerie Stuttenberg — the site of the projection mapping and a potential space for future vertical connections and collective accessibility interventions. / Still from footage filmed by Nami Gradolí during the residency at arc en rêve, Bordeaux.
Installation audiovisuelle à arc en rêve. À travers des récits intimes et une écoute située, le dispositif explorait la manière dont les récits personnels peuvent relier l’expérience incarnée, la mémoire et la transformation spatiale. / Audiovisual installation at arc en rêve. Through intimate stories and situated listening, the display explored how personal narratives can connect embodied experience, memory and spatial transformation.
Installation audiovisuelle à arc en rêve. À travers des récits intimes et une écoute située, le dispositif explorait la manière dont les récits personnels peuvent relier l’expérience incarnée, la mémoire et la transformation spatiale. / Audiovisual installation at arc en rêve. Through intimate stories and situated listening, the display explored how personal narratives can connect embodied experience, memory and spatial transformation. / © Nami Gradolí Giner
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