What is remarkable about how women architects approach livability? That is the question at the heart of “Reconceptualizing Urban Housing,” an exhibition within the Venice Biennale–adjacent “Time Space Existence” show at Palazzo Mora. The answers, as expected, are manifold. Spearheaded by the European Cultural Centre, the presentation is a collaboration between nine female-led firms.

Each one works on human-centred developments that carve out opportunities for the creation of better spaces within multi-unit residential projects — and quite literally, in the case of Heather Dubbeldam. With her In-Vert Apartments, the Toronto architect proposes slicing into existing low-rise rental buildings to slot in plant-filled, inverted balconies and topping the whole thing off with additional tiers.

The architects whose work is included in “Reconceptualizing Urban Housing,” clockwise from top left, are: Manuelle Gautrand, Heather Dubbeldam, Fernanda Canales, Eleena Jamil, Johanna Meyer-Grohbrügge, Francine Houben, Doreen Adengo, Jeanne Gang and Alison Brooks

This gentle densification accomplishes two needed goals: hacking neighbourhoods for the incremental insertion of more housing units and doing so in a way that allows for dynamic and inspiring modes of living. “The current conversation around the housing crisis is largely focused on bringing more units to market, with less discussion about social sustainability and livability. The bigger picture should also consider how to create amazing places to live,” says Dubbeldam. All nine featured firms are pushing the boundaries in this regard, and then finding a way to get their paradigm-shifting work built around the world.

In-Vert Apartments, conceived by Heather Dubbeldam as an adaptive re-use scheme for Toronto, feature inverted balconies

They include Uganda’s Adengo Architecture, led by Doreen Adengo, who died in 2022 at the age of 45 after a long illness. She sought to make affordable housing in her city of Kampala a rich territory for both developers and community. One of her projects (image top of article) envisions seven three-storey apartment blocks, each with 10 units, that make magic with offset stair structures. Shared between apartment blocks and wrapped in alternating raw-earth bricks, these public spaces create communal areas of repose while ushering natural light and air into the individual units. It exemplifies the dual sense of sustainability that Adengo, Dubbeldam and their peers celebrate in this small but mighty showcase: the environmental and social.