Architectural History has often focused on extraordinary author pieces and been told from the perspective of celebrated architects, clients and critics (Hultzsch and Martínez 2023, Gosseye et al. 2021). However, much of the architecture we encounter every day is commonplace, designed by unknown authors and continuously adapted by those who inhabit it. The digital platform arquitecturaaqui.eu focuses on public-use buildings of the 20th century in Portugal and Spain - examples of everyday architecture that frequently go unnoticed and undervalued. While playing essential roles in the communities they serve, schools, markets, day centres, and other facilities suffer from limited funding for their continued maintenance.

In this context, the goals of Arquitectura Aqui are twofold: to contribute to a history of common architecture, built by diverse voices and including the different actors involved in the conception, construction, and use of public buildings; and to bring the voices of users forward as a way of understanding the historical and continuous value of these buildings to local communities, contributing to their recognition by public entities.

This paper discusses the premises, methods, practice, and preliminary results of the Arquitectura Aqui initiative and its materialisation in a digital platform designed to combine academic historical research with the knowledge of local communities. Firstly, the initiative is contextualised within a growing body of work aimed at constructing a more bottom-up history of architecture that does not freeze a building in its completion, tracing its subsequent decades of use. Subsequently, it examines how the structure of the Arquitectura Aqui digital database provides a multi-scalar view of architectural history, which allows for a comprehensive, simultaneous reading of patterns through data analysis and a fine-grained understanding of the social life of buildings through the collection of oral histories and local documents.

Hultzsch and Martínez (2023) have shown that listening to users can broaden traditional architectural history by applying Gilligan and Eddy's (2021) Listening Guide to construct inclusive histories. Oral history allows us to shift the focus of historiography towards users and how architecture is used, transformed, and performs when confronted with the real needs of those who inhabit it (Agarez et al. 2025, Gosseye et al. 2019, Stein and Rowden 2019). Architecture appears to be a privileged field for this approach: Stein (2014) and Hayden (1995) argue that memory is spatially situated, and informants often describe spaces to narrate events, grounding their memories in materiality. However, Gosseye et al. (2021) have noted that, in the field of architecture, oral history has been mostly used to record the perspectives of architect-authors, reinforcing the idea of a "heroic designer" (p.140).

Digital archives, databases and collaborative platforms enable more complete histories, informed by a variety of sources - such as architectural drawings, historic photographs, interviews, and other records. Through these, the histories of buildings can be understood as being made by a large and diverse range of actors that include not only architects, but clients or funders, builders, and users (Paine & Greenop 2022). Additionally, the cumulative aspect of a digital database opens possibilities for the quantitative exploration of data and the identification of patterns that might otherwise go undetected, facilitating a shift in architectural history from individual objects to broader systems of production, circulation, and use (Jaskot 2017).

The Arquitectura Aqui initiative seeks to combine these two scales - patterns and narratives - as a way of broadening architectural history and bringing it closer to the public. The platform documents the history of buildings from conception to post-occupancy, encompassing different phases: expression of need, request for aid, conception and funding, construction, and use/transformation. Telling this story requires diverse sources. Archival documentation, namely construction records, offers thorough information on all the phases from expression of need to construction. Historical photographs and oral testimonies inform our understanding of building transformation over time. The latter also reveals the significance of buildings to local communities and can offer insights into the historical context in which the original need arises.

The platform uses the existing Shiro system – an opensource database-administration platform developed in PHP/MySQL by Plano B Design (https://www.plano-b.com.br/shiro) -, and was built from the ground up using a relational structure where documentation - including archival records, bibliography, iconography, and oral testimonies - mediates the relationships between different classes of data. The database structure follows a person-event-object model (following the RDF subject-predicate-object model and similar to that used in LINCS, Canning et al. 2022, by Boer et al. 2015 and Nijboer and Rasterhoff 2018): agents-documentation-action-building. In this structure, the relationship between an Agent (e.g. a local association, a municipality, or a resident) and an Action (e.g. funding, construction, or occupation) is always mediated by a specific piece of Documentation. This allows for all information to be traceable to its source and ensures academic rigour, while placing oral testimonies and historical photographs on par with official bureaucratic records.

The platform's interface design acknowledges its diverse target audience, which includes elderly users and other local community members who may have varying levels of technological proficiency. The design of the public-facing website incorporates photographs, colours, and large fonts as complements to accessible histories of the built environment. The interface relies on visual media over previous knowledge, and information is presented in layers. Users can navigate the database through illustrated lists, maps, and visual timelines. More complex search functions are also available, making it possible to browse by type of building, time period, agents, documentation, and composites of any of these, allowing for expert use. While the descriptions of buildings and communities summarise the set of data collected for each entry, documentation descriptions provide detailed accounts.

Most oral history records currently on the platform have been collected by team members during fieldwork. However, the platform accepts user contributions, which are moderated by the research team and incorporated into the database after verification. This combination of sources broadens the universe of architectural history and makes the information openly available and presented in a user-friendly manner for both academic audiences and the wider public. This approach democratises the making of history by enabling access for people who don't easily have access to historical documents. It expands the voices heard and recorded in the writing of architectural history and, simultaneously, who can access historical knowledge and directly contribute to this construction.

The initiative has currently indexed 3.312 buildings across 99 communities in Portugal and Spain, aggregating 3.002 archival documents, 240 conversations and interviews, thousands of photographic records of the current state of buildings, as well as albums with historical photographs offered by community members or local archives. 1.738 organisations and 2.993 persons have been identified across the different phases of these buildings' lifecycles.

Quantitative analysis of the database reveals temporal patterns in the provision of public services in Portugal and Spain. For example, examining building construction related to two important pillars of the welfare state - health and housing - makes evident the surge of building initiatives from 1974, when the Portuguese Carnation Revolution marked the end of the fascist dictatorship. This reflects a new approach to accumulated needs and represents a fundamental shift in state priorities toward social welfare infrastructure. Furthermore, the database reveals a shift in agency: pre-1974 projects are largely funded by central General-Directorates, while post-1974 projects show a proliferation of local agents - such as municipalities and Local Associations - taking ownership of development.

Similar temporal patterns appear across other building typologies, each revealing how public architecture responded to evolving social and political contexts. Educational buildings reflect demographic shifts and policy changes with the increase of post elementary education and sports facilities emerge later as leisure infrastructure developed. The database's temporal analysis thus makes visible the relationship between political economy and built environment. Additionally, the platform's documentation of agents across the building lifecycle reveals geographic patterns in construction networks, with distinct differences between northern and southern regions. This multi-actor approach also exposes gender imbalances in the historical record: while the database documents thousands of individuals, women remain significantly underrepresented, highlighting whose voices have traditionally been recorded in architectural archives and underscoring the importance of incorporating oral histories to capture more diverse perspectives.

If the multimodal and multi-actor approach is the basis of the platform and a key part of its innovation, it also affects its long-term sustainability. On the one hand, the complex relational data structure and interactive, user-friendly design require regular maintenance to prevent digital obsolescence (Goddard, 2023; Coble & Karlin, 2023; Neuefeind et al., 2020). On the other hand, the continued collection of personal materials and testimonies through the digital platform relies on ongoing dissemination and back-office work. Neither of these is guaranteed by the current model of academic funding through short-lived projects. Consolidating the Arquitectura Aqui initiative will require addressing the challenges of digital sustainability and data reusability.

Arquitectura Aqui demonstrates that digital architectural history need not choose between global patterns and local narratives. By structuring a database around the social lifecycle of buildings and integrating community memory as a core data type, the platform offers a multi-scalar view of the built environment.

Funding acknowledgement

This work has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, Grant Agreement No. 949686 – ReARQ.IB – Built Environment Knowledge for Resilient, Sustainable Communities: Understanding Everyday Modern Architecture and Urban Design in the Iberian Peninsula (1939-1985), https://arquitecturaaqui.eu/en.