International Workshop Building Back Better was initially conceived as a pilot project for KhSA’s new Master’s Programme in Architecture and Urbanism. It has since become an annual international workshop, bringing together students and faculty from universities across Europe to investigate questions of post-war recovery, resilience, and urban transformation through collaborative design and research.
01-07 February 2026, Building Back Better: Kharkiv workshop focused on the home city of the Kharkiv School of Architecture. Following the workshop’s established methodology, participants worked across four interconnected scales: bioregion, city, district, and home.
The workshop brought together international teams of students and faculty to develop spatial and urban design proposals addressing the realities of a city at war while envisioning scenarios for its recovery and long-term transformation. Integrating architectural, urban, and social perspectives, the projects were presented through maps, analytical diagrams, spatial scenarios, visualisations, and explanatory narratives, making the outcomes accessible to both professional audiences and the wider public.
The first International Workshop Building Back Better took place in February 2024, bringing together 60 participants — 30 in Lviv and 30 in Warsaw — to explore the city of Dnipro across four interconnected scales: river, city, district, and home. Working in international teams, students and faculty developed research-informed design proposals addressing the challenges of post-war recovery and long-term urban transformation. The workshop concluded with a public exhibition presenting the participants’ proposals, which was subsequently showcased in Lviv and Kyiv.
The second Building Back Better workshop took place in February 2025 and focused on Odesa, exploring the city’s vulnerabilities and future development through the lens of risk, resilience, and sustainable recovery. The projects developed during the workshop were presented at final exhibitions in Lviv, Kyiv, and Odesa. Digital versions of the proposals were subsequently featured in the French Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale as part of Living With, an exhibition exploring how architecture can respond to a world shaped by uncertainty, conflict, and permanent transformation.
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