A SENSE OF HOME
When did you start your design concept for a refugee housing facility?
On March 10th. As my wife and I headed into Western Ukraine, finding accommodations became a huge problem. Anyone with a flat was asking for the highest rent. That’s the problem a refugee faces, and I came to understand temporary housing would be one of the first priorities for destroyed cities.
We started our design by taking some principles from similar projects across Europe. After 10 days, we released our basic idea, which we have continued to work on. Soon, we had requests to set up master plans for this housing in about 10 different cities. And for now, we’re working with three of them.
What defines your approach?
Comfort. Even if this is just going to be a temporary home, the main requirement is that it supports human dignity. So we’ve doubled up the number of restrooms and showers that this type of facility might usually have and added storage, laundry and common rooms.
The apartments are still small, but the overall housing gives you ways to form new connections, which makes recovery easier. Otherwise, if you lose your home and get transferred to some cold shipping container, you’ll continue to be in stress.
How do you see this concept being adapted to different locations?
So many different Ukrainian villages need a path forward, and we want to preserve some of their architectural identity. Week by week, we have been taking short trips all across the country — to the safe parts, at least — to develop a design code that can adapt to each village, whether it’s by adopting similar framing or a familiar colour palette or matching the typical roof inclination.
We’re thinking of ways to install this in a big wave. When you’re speaking about covering the whole country, it’s a system, not just a project. We’re currently fundraising to build a pilot project where we would act as the developer and test out different approaches. It will house 15 families, and we want to gather their feedback about what kind of life it’s allowing for.
What role does the rest of the world have to play in supporting Ukraine?
The main thing that we need is military support and funds to recover the economy. Right now, the whole world is helping Ukraine, and it’s really what’s allowing us to survive. Of course, the Ukrainian forces and citizens are demonstrating amazing bravery, especially when you’re looking at people who have just been handed arms off of trucks and set themselves up as territorial defense. But without the support of the world, I can’t imagine where we’d be.
What is your reaction to global firms weighing in on rebuilding Ukraine?
It’s too early to discuss rebuilding in any real sense, because the war continues. The biggest part of Ukraine is still under attack, so you don’t know the full scope of the task. That will come when this ends. But for now, we are doing emergency sprints to clear the streets and build temporary houses.
Ukraine won’t be the same after this, and the world won’t either. It’s a world war, but at a different scale — Ukraine is the epicentre, but the whole world is participating. It will all change, and how it will change, we will see. I don’t think we’ll understand the full impact for another 10 years.
Even if refugee housing is just a temporary home, the main requirement is that it supports human dignity.