1. THE KHARKIV ATLAS
Research of the technical block, 4th semester, 2019/2020
Tutors: Andriy Bidakov, Oleh Drozdov
Authors of works: Oleksandra Antal, Daren Dmytriiev, Kateryna Movchan, Nelia Moroz, Kostiantyn Palieiev, Mariia Samiilenko, Mariia Suprun, Dominik Khoroshavin, Alisa Aleksandrova, Nataliia Kozub, Olha Mozghova, Mariia Kolomiitseva, Dmytro Leheida,Kateryna Pylypenko, Anna Pylypenko, Anna Prokopchuk, Hanna Sokolova
“The Kharkiv Atlas” uses the city objects as educational materials to engage students in comprehending the (dis)continuity of the (in)tangible values of the building in the constantly evolving urban environment. The course is organised into three components: research into the social and cultural contexts of the site formalised as an historical passport of the object; research into the nature of the construction, its tectonics and changes caused by time, political, and technological transformations and drawing an axonometric section of the building to show its overlapping transformations.
Cinema and Concert Hall “Ukraine”
(1958–1963, by Vadym Vasyliev, Yuriy Plaksiyev and Volodymyr Reusov)
The Ukraine Cinema and Concert Hall was a reconstruction of an open summer music theatre opened in 1963. The building had a structure, which was technically very advanced for its day, and which became an architectural landmark of Kharkiv. Located in the park zone, the cinema and concert hall with its modern interior and acoustics was one of the key venues for recreation in Soviet Kharkiv.
Hotel “Kharkiv”
(1934, by Hryhoriy Yanovytskyi)
The Kharkiv Hotel is a symbol of both the success and the tragedy of the capital of Soviet Ukraine. In 1934, it became part of the Constructivist ensemble of the Dzerzhynskyi Square demonstrating the grandeur of the young republic. The Second World War and Stalin repressions changed the building beyond recognition. The hotel, which had been damaged during the war, was rebuilt in 1952 under the project of the same architect to accommodate all the requirement of Stalinist architecture.
Residential Building in 40/2 Pushkinska st.,
(1931–1933, Mykola Pliekhov and Oleksiy Tatsyi, architects; Andriy Vatsenko, engineer)
In 1919–1934, Kharkiv was a major centre of Constructivist development in the USSR. When the building in Pushkinska st. 40/2 was under construction, the city already had the constructivism icons: the Derzhprom and the Central Post Office. In 1930, Pavlo Alyoshyn, a representative of the Kharkiv school of urban planning, proposed a project of the Kharkiv Tractor Plant social city. The same year saw the construction of the Gigant (giant) hostel in Pushkinska 52/2. The six-storey three-section residential building with a shop in Pushkinska became (then) the tallest among the first edifices made of large slag blocks. Its corner section has rounded five-facet design to test the possibilities of using large blocks in constructing buildings with a complex shape.
Central Department Store “Kharkiv”
(1933, Oleksandr Linetskyi, architect)
The asymmetrical composition of the constructivist building dynamically emphasised the traffic in one of the major thoroughfares in the city centre. During the Second World War, the department store burnt to the ground. A group of architects, including Mykhailo Movshovych, Borys Klein and V. Kharlamov, had to draw its project practically from scratch. The building was opened from the sides: in the east towards the beginning of the Moskovskyi Ave. and in the west towards the Lopan’ embankment. The architects worked in the political context of the so-called Stalin Empire style and so they had to re-furbish the department store using the classical architectural forms and decorate it with countless ornamental elements. The original idea of the building was completely obliterated.
The Building of the DonVuhillia (Donbass Coal) Trust
(1925, by Anatoliy Nossalevych and Ihnat Lomayev)
The building of the DonVuhillia (Donbass Coal) Trust is a symbol of the radical transformations of Kharkiv: from the Russian Empire through the October revolution to Soviet modernism. It gives glimpses of futurism, revolutionary romanticism and constructivism. The DonVuhillia Building also showcases the continuity of the tradition of Kharkiv administrative buildings rooted in the 19th century.
The Electric Engineering Building of the Kharkiv Institute of Technology
(1928–1931, by Oleksiy Beketov)
This building can be read as a biography of Oleksiy Beketov, a renowned architect from Kharkiv. It reflects different stages both in Beketov’s career and in the history of the city, showcasing elements of imperial architecture, experiments with Constructivism, and attempts to adjust to the totalitarian regime by adding elements of Stalinist architecture to the construction.
A Residential House in Chaikovskiy St.
(1914, by Oleksandr Rzepiszevsky)
Oleksandr Rzepiszevsky, the creator of magnificent buildings of the Imperial Kharkiv, outstripped his time. His building had implemented the boldest solutions of modernism long before Kharkiv became the capital of constructivism. The façade of this building concealed the unfolding history of modernist Kharkiv as the world capital of physics. Since 1928, the building was the residence of the researchers from the Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology headed by Lev Landau.
The Building of the Research Institute of Occupational Hygiene
(1935, by Victor Estrovych)
The Institute represented new Soviet medicine affordable for the working class and its patients were workers of the industrial Kharkiv. The constructivist building of the Institute displayed the modernity of the capital of Soviet Ukraine and its emancipation from the past. At the same time, it evidenced the continuity of the tradition by using a clear semantic hierarchy characteristic for Kharkiv architectural landscape.
The New Arcade, or Department Store “Children’s World”
(1910–1954, Oleksandr Linetskyi and Mykhailo Piskunov, architects)
The construction of the Arcade started before the October revolution in 1917 and completed in 1925. The Children’s World department store was a brainchild of the developing pre-World War 2 Soviet commerce. In 1941–1943, during the World War 2, the Arcade building was damaged. It was renovated in 1947–1954. During the reconstruction, the south-eastern wing was separated from the building by the length of one constructive module and then it was attached to the City Hall building, erected during the time.
The Circus
(1974, Solomiya Gelfer and Hryhoriy Naprienko, architects; V.A. Shemyakin, engineer)
The building of the circus was constructed according to the standard project of the Moscow State Institute for the Design of Theatrical and Entertainment Establishments (GIProTeatr). The straight-hanging shell used in the project enabled the total glazing of the vestibule, the foyer, and the lobby. Yet, this solution turned out to be inefficient for a circus building, because it restricted the weight of suspended equipment that could be attached to the construction. The attic is not part of the constructive bearing ring of the circus’ hypar; rather, it is a decorative shape “suspended” from the wall and it has an aesthetic role in the overall architectural composition of the building.
Academic Building No. 1 (U1) of the National Technical University “Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute”
(1974, I.D. Ovsiankin and Victor Livshyts, architects; Ye. Troshkin and M. Reznik, engineers)
The Kharkiv architects started to design this building after the 860–880 Lake Shore Drive Towers by Mies van der Rohe were erected in Chicago, Illinois, USA. A statement in itself, this used to be the tallest building in the 1960s’ Kharkiv. It location manifests the dominant role of education in the city: the Polytechnic building overlooks the industrial zone of the linear city. The building still has six functioning lifts, including two high-speed ones, which are switched on 10 min. before the lectures and switched off as soon as the lectures start.
Hotel “Myr”
(1977–1979, Serhiy Myrhorodskyi, Roman-Enrique Hupalo, N.I. Didenko, I.N. Ivanov, and Victor Savchenko, architects; V.M. Klochkov, sculptor)
The Myr (peace) was constructed as the first contemporary hotel in Kharkiv. The hotel’s effective location in the urban environment, well-balanced pedestrian and transportation infrastructure, a clear functional solution matched with an up-to-date construction and the refined artistic approach to the interiors make the Myr one of the best hotels erected in Ukraine in the 1980s.
2. PAVLOVE POLE
Studio project, 6 semester, 2021.
Tutors: Oleh Drozdov, Maria Tselik
Authors of projects: Alisa Aleksandrova, Nataliia Kozub, Mariia Kolomiitseva, Olha Mozghova, Anna Prokopchuk, Hanna Sokolova
Alternative history: re-thinking a district in central Kharkiv and transforming it into a thriving multifunctional urban space
Terms of Reference:
The project focuses on a part of the 1960-1970s residential micro-district in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Although the district has been actively developing during the last 40 years, as recently as in the 1970s, Pavlove Pole was a Kharkiv suburb. Presently, this area has become Kharkiv’s centre: geographically, but not conceptually. The project re-thinks this “urban dormitory” as a synthesized multifunctional district.
Today’s Pavlove Pole consists of panel-based and brick five-storey buildings, “khrushchovkas”. Lack of parks, disorderly courtyards, and low-standard architecture are among the most obvious challenges, though their list is much longer. The major challenge faced by the district is that with every year passed its functional program underpinning in the original project gets more obsolete. At the same time, the low density and low-rise typology has turned the district into a real green oasis. This, together with its central location, makes it one of the most attractive residential areas in Kharkiv.
Proposed Solution:
to design a functionally and architecturally new enclave within the residential area while keeping to the existing footprints.
Meta-Goal:
to design a synthetic building with all the functions distributed rationally and to ensure comfort and climate control.
3. ABSTRACTION
Studio project, 1st semester, 2020.
Tutors: Oleksandra Nikitenko, Alina Yesayan
Authors of works: Juliia Baranovska, Martselina Bohach, Yelysaveta Hrytskevych, Mariia Murai, Illia Oizer, Mykyta Pohorielov, Andrii Svorovskyi, Viktoriia Turovska, Anna Usikova, Zakharii Yusubov, Sofiia Kuzmychova
An utterance in the language of architecture implies the addresser’s interpretation and synthesis of his/her own experience, memory, and culture with the features of the context in the broad sense. The four steps, photography/graphics/relief/space, are aimed at developing an understanding, interpretation, and abstraction as instruments of architectural project work. Graphic works rely on photography, using its regularities and logic. By interpreting, simplifying, and generalizing a graphic composition, the relief becomes the first attempt to transcend the planar sheet of paper. Space operates with the categories of plane, mass, volume, and void with regard to light and shadow and the human scale. Every next step is an abstract interpretation of the previous one, developing it and keeping its logic.
4. ART-RESIDENCE
Studio project, 2 semester, 2021
Tutors: Daria Ozhyganova, Hanna Vovchenko
Authors of works: Martselina Bohach, Yelysaveta Hrytskevych, Mariia Murai, Illia Oizer, Mykyta Pohorielov, Andrii Svorovskyi, Anna Usikova, Zakharii Yusubov, Sofiia Kuzmychova
Projects of private houses/workshops for Ukrainian artists under the concept of a new Biruchiy art-residence in a former tourist camp in Putyvl’, Ukraine.
Terms of Reference:
Project work done for a specific context and for real clients with their own individual values provides grounds for research, critical analysis, and discussion of the efficiency of using the existing housing typologies.
Proposed Solutions:
The vision and the mission for the residence area underpin the proposed zoning concept and create context for further design of individual workshops for artists. The work with a specific client and the analysis of the client’s lifestyle and work have laid the foundation for the unique scenarios and programmes of the buildings. The project focus is to match the circulation with the spatial solution to enable the required scenarios and create a range of spatial experiences for the residents.
Meta-Goal:
to stimulate discussion about the phenomenon of a building and its spatial interpretations to conduce reflections about genius loci and the architect’s ability to design places rather than spaces.
5. MADE IN BARABASHOVO
Studio project, 5 semester, 2020.
Tutors: Nadia Nilina, Denis Kozak, Oleksandra Naryzhna
Authors of project: Alisa Aleksandrova, Nataliia Kozub, Olha Mozghova, Mariia Kolomiitseva, Dmytro Leheida,Kateryna Pylypenko, Anna Pylypenko, Anna Prokopchuk, Hanna Sokolova
The project re-thinks the area around the Barabashovo market as a multi-functional urban environment based on the principles of landscaping and ecologically-friendly planning.
Terms of Reference:
The Barabashovo market designed as a temporary structure is currently facing numerous challenges, including a significant reduction of sales, seasonal flooding and fires, inflated size and enormous maintenance costs. The transition towards e-commerce, Kharkiv population outflow and absence of a comprehensive strategy for Kharkiv development are the crucial factors questioning the viability of the market of such a scale and its location near the Zhuravlyovka hydropark recreation area.
Proposed Solutions:
The new vision implies the development of a multi-functional environment along the key streets and establishing a transportation hub around the underground station. The enormous commercial space becomes a thriving R&D urban area, creating new economic stimuli and high-tech jobs. The proposal includes a reconstruction of the water basins and rivers in the market area and an extension and development of the adjacent embankment to stimulate the development of the hydropark and to ensure ecological sustainability of the whole district.
Meta-Goal:
to develop a concept of Kharkiv’s new urban planning structure, with the project re-thinking the Barabashovo market as its constituent. The use, expansion and connection of the city parks, rivers and adjacent areas will form a system of new connections and meanings, which, in the longer term, will make Kharkiv a comfortable ecologically-friendly city with attractive opportunities for investment.
6. WALL MODEL/BRICK STRUCTURES
Technical block, 1-2 semester, 2020/2021
Tutor: Andriy Bidakov
Authors of works: Juliia Baranovska, Martselina Bohach, Yelysaveta Hrytskevych, Mariia Murai, Illia Oizer, Mykyta Pohorielov, Andrii Svorovskyi, Viktoriia Turovska, Anna Usikova, Zakharii Yusubov, Sofiia Kuzmychova
The wall is one of the basic elements of architecture: it takes loads, divides space and guides movement. An understanding of the tectonics of a wall constructed of a specific material and the plasticity of brick construction comes through modelling the physical structures of walls. Research into the properties of different materials and specifics of construction technologies reveals the wall as the mirror of a region, time and tradition.
7. CRUSH TESTS/STRUCTURES/STRUCTURAL ASSEMBLIES
Technical block, 1-2nd semester, 2020/2021
Tutor: Andriy Bidakov
Authors of works: Juliia Baranovska, Martselina Bohach, Yelysaveta Hrytskevych, Mariia Murai, Illia Oizer, Mykyta Pohorielov, Andrii Svorovskyi, Viktoriia Turovska, Anna Usikova, Zakharii Yusubov, Sofiia Kuzmychova
Subject to the physical laws of the material universe, architecture is its integral component. The construction and the structure are the way for an architect to think in a language physically felt. The process of modelling and testing structures and their assemblies gives an understanding of the potential, possibilities, and specifics of a structural layout or a structural assembly revealing its poetics and drama. Tectonics is a form of art; structure is an architectural domain with its own inherent value complementing the idea and the concept.
8. RESEARCH INTO SIEVIERODONETSK
Studio project, 5th semester, 2021
Tutors: Fulco Treffers, Nataliia Kozub
Authors of works: Oleksandra Antal, Daren Dmytriiev, Kateryna Movchan, Nelia Moroz, Kostiantyn Palieiev, Mariia Samiilenko, Mariia Suprun, Dominik Khoroshavin
The city of Sievierodonets was constructed in the 1930s for the workers of the gigantic “Azot” (nitrogen) plant. The “Azot” plant used to be a source of both income and pride. Since 2014 and till the start of the massive Russian invasion, only 10% of the plant were in operation, while the front line came as close as 30 km to the city. After Luhansk occupation, Sievierodonetsk has become a new Oblast (regional) centre. The started decentralisation reform finally brought budget funds for Sievierodonets’ development.
The students were asked to formulate their own vision of how urban planning could stimulate the development of Sievierodonetsk and to design a relevant master plan for a selected plot providing a detailed design for its key elements. Another task was to learn to choose among the many possible scenarios in the situation of uncertainty and excessive problematizing and also to acquire skills of urban planning in different scales.
The work started with two field trips to the project site to collect data for research. The students’ individual design work was supported through consultations, lectures, discussions and workshops.
The final result was a team research on Sievierodonetsk and individual project proposals.
9. CENTRALA WORKSHOP
Tutors: Simone De Iacobis, Małgorzata Kuciewicz
Students: Oleksandra Antal, Daren Dmytriiev, Kateryna Movchan, Nelia Moroz, Kostiantyn Palieiev, Mariia Samiilenko, Mariia Suprun, Dominik Khoroshavin, Juliia Baranovska, Martselina Bohach, Yelysaveta Hrytskevych, Mariia Murai, Illia Oizer, Mykyta Pohorielov, Andrii Svorovskyi, Viktoriia Turovska, Anna Usikova, Zakharii Yusubov, Sofiia Kuzmychova
The interaction between architecture and the environment is deepened and viewed through the observation and research of the basic elements of the world around: water, air, soil, light, and gravity. Weekly workshops with the Polish group CENTRALA are aimed at understanding the features and the potential of the basic elements of the environment and at experimenting with them. How does gravity work? How do water and air influence architecture, while becoming its constituent part? What forms the microclimate of a place? What is the nature of light? How to treat these fundamental constituents, which ultimately become architecture, in an informed way and how to direct them?
10. INFRASTRUCTURE+
Diploma project, 7th semester, 2021.
Tutor: Denis Kozak
Authors of projects: Alisa Aleksandrova, Mariia Kolomiitseva, Anna Prokopchuk
Three projects represent three visions of how to unlock the potential of Kharkiv’s available infrastructure to transform it into a thriving urban space.
Terms of Reference:
A well-developed infrastructure is an unquestionable asset for all the city dwellers. At the same time, its spatial organization is a tremendous challenge for today’s city with comfort, convenience, and mobility being its key priorities. The mono-functionality of infrastructure is a hurdle that isolates it from urban processes and makes it consume vast areas, especially in the urban downtown, resulting in overwhelming negative consequences.
Proposed Solutions:
The projects’ strategy is underpinned by urbanistic concepts which inject the infrastructural networks with a new meaning. Based on the idea of a compact decentralized city, the projects spatially transform the existing infrastructure by supplying it with new functions and creating new connections. The projects aim at demonstrating a possibility of direct co-existence of engineering communications and daily urban life.
Meta-Goal:
to create a set of solutions which can underpin the transformation of post-Soviet infrastructural projects in Ukraine to stimulate public discussion about the use of valuable area around the infrastructure within the city limits and the need to improve the regulatory legislation on design of public functions within such areas.
11. RE-THINKING A MODERN SCHOOL: KEY ISSUES
Studio project, 3 semester, 2019.
Tutors: Ignas Uogintas, Oleksandra Kryvtsova
Authors of projects: Alisa Aleksandrova, Nataliia Kozub, Olha Mozghova, Anna Pylypenko, Anna Prokopchuk
Terms of Reference:
The school plays an integral role in every child’s education, yet, a school built during the Soviet times may fail to meet today’s needs of a young person. Presently, the educational reform is globally underway. Today we can clearly see the growing importance of person-oriented and interdisciplinary education and social relations. We can also see the need to apply more personalized, student-oriented laboratory-based methods of education. But what kind of methods are these and how can their application be supported by the shape and the space of a Good School? Can architecture influence the way a student learns, interacts, plays, and grows as a thinking, discerning, and inquisitive being? And if yes, how can it do that?
Goals:
to learn to analyse the current complex situations and to work to resolve them in order to support students in developing their critical thinking and abilities to identify problems and strengthening their problem-solving skills to study how new models of education can affect the creation of space, whether a school can take the shape of a work station or a cluster of educational spaces subordinated to a department or open studio educational spaces or customised educational spaces, etc. How to develop awareness by teaching to think about nature, ecology, and ecological design? How can exhaustible resources be used rationally? Can local materials be used and to what advantages? What are the possible ways of using and re-using educational spaces? How to understand the work of the school internal community (the students, their parents and teachers) and its interaction with other urban communities? How to stimulate the integration between the school and the community and to maintain it? Can it become a catalyst for developing the neighbourhood? Should education be confined to a classroom? How can space become dynamic inside static structures to accommodate changing requirements (e. g., a changing number of students)?
Objectives:
to explore one of the existing schools; to identify one key issue listed or not listed above and to resolve it; to suggest a relevant spatial configuration. to grasp and to comprehend the work of the existing primary school (1st to 4th forms) and to propose how to change, improve and perfect it on the basis of the task given by the client (the school community).
Project Location:
Three neighboring schools in Micro-District 522, Kharkiv, Ukraine: School No. 17, School No. 55, and School No. 107
12. “BODY AND SPACE” PERFORMANCE
Skills Block, 1st semester, 2021
Tutors: Kostyantin Zorkin, Mykola Naboka
Students: Anastasiia Aniskina, Kyrylo Babii, Mariia Haiboniuk, Daria Horovenko, Oleksandr Holovashkin, Sofia Holts, Nataliia Hopalo, Myroslava Kudelia, Eleonora Lushchyk, Heorhii Maksymenko, Paulina Marchenko, Kyrylo Nechytailo, Oleksandr Podolskyi
A person interacts and feels the space through the body. What is the nature of the spatial movement of a person? Does space affect the movement of a person? Can movement affect space? The comprehension of the bodily perception of space enables an architect to direct the feelings by modeling space accordingly. By shifting the focus from oneself as the creator with an individual expression to the puppet – a life-scale model of a person, the architect concentrates on the person who will perceive the space and for whom the space is designed.
13. LIGHT – SHADOW – REFLECTION (a series)
Year exhibition 2020
Tutor: Boris Filonenko
Students: Oleksandra Antal, Daren Dmytriiev, Kateryna Movchan, Nelia Moroz, Kostiantyn Palieiev, Mariia Samiilenko, Mariia Suprun, Dominik Khoroshavin, Alisa Aleksandrova, Nataliia Kozub, Olha Mozghova, Mariia Kolomiitseva, Dmytro Leheida,Kateryna Pylypenko, Anna Pylypenko, Anna Prokopchuk, Hanna Sokolova
No one was ready for 2020, not even architects. In September 2020, the Foundation Year enrolees were invited to “Save the city, become an architect!” while in February 2021, the School realised that a better phrase would have been “Start from scratch”. The pandemic world left no choice, because it is challenging to save the city while safe-isolating. Yet, during that difficult year, the School did manage quite a lot: in the city of Cherkasy, behind the Derzhprom and in Saltovka Micro-District 522 in Kharkiv, in the village of Koropove, and on the isle of Rybalskyi in Kyiv. As a result, 19 students of the 1st and the 2nd years told their stories from that year at the Annual Exhibition.
They presented the perspective of the students’ community of the Kharkiv School of Architecture and invited their guests to a video hosting instead of the School’s Lecture Hall. This year, the Annual Exhibition has transformed into a video series.
