According to data provided by KSE, as of October 2022, 135,800 private and apartment buildings were damaged and destroyed in Ukraine. Reconstruction of the housing stock is already taking place, but currently there is no single strategy for how it should happen in order to avoid the corruption component and get really quality objects. One of the options offered by specialists is architectural competitions.

Property Times asked experts to comment on whether architectural competitions can become an effective tool in the reconstruction of Ukraine and how to organize it at the legislative level?

Myroslava Lebedko, head of the PERIMETER project department

I have very pessimistic thoughts on this matter, unfortunately, I do not know of any architectural competition in which the decision would be made transparently - this is the first point. The second is that no matter how patriotic we are, it is impossible to develop concepts for contests for free. The third point is that a lot of cities were destroyed during the war, which already need immediate reconstruction, waiting for the competition is a lot of time, which most people do not have, also, in my opinion, these projects do not need super genius solutions, they must meet certain criteria, for example: quickly built, financially economical and must meet modern requirements for safety, energy efficiency, etc.

Perhaps such a vision may seem pessimistic to some (because there are less visually attractive solutions like the so-called "panels" we all inherited after the Second World War), but we should all remember the main task of architecture - to fulfill a certain function. It is the functionality of the object that should become the main criterion of all reconstruction programs and architectural competitions - we should all focus on the immediate needs of the affected communities and the restoration of the functioning of key objects of both housing and social infrastructure.

In my opinion, it is necessary to think more globally, it is necessary to develop a general architectural concept of new cities, on the basis of which new industries will be built, people from different parts of Ukraine will settle in these cities, and only in this way is it possible to rebuild our country, because simply building new housing — it's nothing, people need work, and when we approach this comprehensively, only then will we be able to revive our Ukraine.