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In May 2023, members of the Architektoniczki group (Joanna Aleksandrowicz, Honorata Grzesikowska and Ewelina Jaskulska), together with Iga Maria Szczepańska – director of the Katarzyna Kozyra Foundation – visited Catalonia, specifically Barcelona, as part of a mobility project to establish a relationship with a collective dealing with gender in urban planning. The aim of the trip was not only to learn but also to exchange knowledge and professional experiences in the spirit of sisterhood.

During their week-long stay in the Catalan capital, Architektoniczki participated in unique lectures and workshops organised by Colectivo Punt 6, an interdisciplinary collective made up of architects, sociologists, and urban planners specialising in feminist urbanism. The organised activities broadly focused on women’s mobility in public transport and the problem of difficult access to toilets in the city for both women and transgender people. The research shows that women naturally need more time to use the bathroom due to their anatomy and physiology (menstruation, pregnancy or bladder infections being more frequent than men). Despite this, they are still systemically discriminated against and do not have equal access to public toilets, which results in huge queues for women’s bathrooms.

Lectures and workshops on mobility-focused, among other things, on the design of the exits to underground stations, safety in the stations, the representation of women on city buses or the distance to the different stops. Architektoniczki, inspired by their work with Colectivo Punt 6, created the roll-up called ONA (HER), depicting what the mental and physical well-being of women walking through the city at night looks like. The project played an important role at the Women’s Congress in Poland. Participants at the event placed stickers with their emotions on the project on the parts of the body where the declared feelings accumulated. This type of research is part of a methodology to design the city (both urban and architectural) according to feminist principles, gender equality and intersectionality.

The field activity during the mobility in Spain also involved exploring the city from a feminist perspective. Architektoniczki observed several aspects of it, including a recently upgraded neighbourhood park that underwent modifications through community involvement, communal housing as a potential solution to the housing shortage, transformations in street areas like the conversion of bustling streets into pedestrian zones, a rise in the usage of non-motorised transportation, and local gardens that regrettably suffered destruction due to major real estate companies.

At the end of their visit to Barcelona, Architektoniczki visited the Equal Saree studio, where they held collaborative discussions about equality in school spaces. The almost week-long stay in Catalonia was full of extremely fruitful and valuable activities and discussions, during which the participants came to conclusions on how to translate experiences and knowledge from everyday life into real transformation. A key issue that ran through all the days of mobility was the impact of shaping space on people’s psycho-physical state and their relationship with their environment, and consequently on inclusivity, tolerance, respect and, therefore, the health of the whole community.