Discovering design code of Ukrainian village that went unnoticed: Balbek Bureau's experience

In 2023, the Ukrainian architectural studio Balbek Bureau launched the RE:Ukraine Villages project, an online construction planning and design editor that allows users to "assemble" a typical Ukrainian village house in just a few minutes. The resulting blueprints are sufficient for construction. The project aims to facilitate the reconstruction of rural homes destroyed by Russian shelling and to preserve the organic image of Ukrainian villages from typical and "fast" projects.

The project now covers six regions, including Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. It began in 2022 and has since evolved from a simple construction editor into a comprehensive research platform that studies the authenticity of Ukrainian rural houses built over the past 100 years.

"It turns out that our architectural authenticity has always been right under our noses; we just didn't notice it," says Vitalina Hoshovska, lead architect of the RE:Ukraine Villages project at Balbek Bureau. In an interview with LIGA.Life, Vitalina shares the subtleties of studying the Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia oblasts, explains how the construction editor works and who can use it, and discusses why the project team decided to shift their focus from reconstruction to preserving national heritage (and what opportunities this opens up).

How it all started and why they are doing it

The idea for the project was born during humanitarian missions after the invasion began in 2022. Slava Balbek, the founder of the bureau, was volunteering in de-occupied villages in the Kyiv Oblast at the time. Noticing how many rural houses with characteristic local elements had been destroyed, Slava realized that they needed to be saved, and thus the idea of studying and documenting what remained was born.

"And the war has only intensified this feeling of 'ours,' and when you see how it is being destroyed and annihilated, you begin to realize just how valuable our heritage truly is," says Vitalina Hoshovska.

When the project was first launched, it became clear that detailed field research would be necessary. The first expeditions to the de-occupied Kyiv Oblast took place in June 2022, followed by studies of villages in the Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Sumy oblasts, which were liberated from occupiers in the spring of 2022.

The technical development of the project took nine months, and in May 2023, the team officially presented an online construction editor that allowed users to "assemble" a model of an authentic house typical of the Kyiv and Chernihiv oblasts. By the end of the year, they added Kharkiv and Sumy oblasts, and now Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia oblasts have been included. By the end of May, they plan to add Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, and Odesa oblasts. The team aims to add all regions of Ukraine, including temporarily occupied territories.

The project's primary practical goal is to help residents of Ukrainian villages rebuild their destroyed homes. "We hoped that this online construction editor would make people's lives much easier during the reconstruction process. Essentially, you receive a PDF file with ready-made plans and blueprints that you can use to build your home, which significantly simplifies the process," says Vitalina.

Another important reason for creating RE:Ukraine Villages is to protect rural settlements from standardized development and preserve the traditional architectural face of Ukrainian villages. After all, reconstruction involves quick and utilitarian solutions that will allow residents to quickly restore their homes and return to a peaceful life. "Of course, this is not bad, but we risk losing the design code of Ukrainian villages. So, we decided to offer some alternative ways to rebuild," explains Hoshovska.

With each new village they studied, the team discovered more and more authentic architecture. Moreover, each region had its unique features and was not like any other. For example, houses in the Kyiv Oblast have a predominantly elongated shape, while in the Chernihiv Oblast, most huts are made of wood and feature wooden authentic decor and carvings. The Kharkiv Oblast is characterized by brick architecture. An interesting feature of the Kyiv Oblast is the benches found near almost every house. All the differences were systematized and added to the constructor.

"I grew up in a small town where there were many private houses, but I never paid attention to them and didn't consider them anything special. But thanks to our project, I realized that the authenticity of our architecture has always been right under our noses; we just didn't notice it," says Vitalina. "So, in a way, this project can be considered a discovery, as loud as that may sound. We started to notice our own culture, to understand what makes us unique, how our way of life is reflected in architecture, and how each person interprets themselves through their own home."

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Who can use the online construction designer and how

RE:Ukraine Villages is an online platform with free access. Users first choose a region whose "design code" they want to use to rebuild or create a new home. A configurator then appears where users can select the house layout, roof shape, porch size, windows, and other components common to huts in each region. "You get access to the construction editor where you can 'assemble' a house and immediately understand what it will look like," says Vitalina.

On average, users have to go through 12 steps, from selecting the layout and roof shape to small elements such as decorations around windows or the building's pediment (the triangular part of the house facade – ed.). The number of steps may vary from region to region. For example, one region may have more window decoration options, while another may have more roof options for huts.

"In the Kyiv Oblast, we have five options for house roofs, while in the Sumy Oblast, there are only three. In the Chernihiv Oblast, there are only wooden decorated windows, so we have six options for frames, while in another oblast there may not be any at all," says Hoshovska.

The online editor is designed for anyone who wants to use it to rebuild a house or create a new one in the traditional style of the region. No special skills are required; all you need is a smartphone or laptop and internet access. "And that's it. Our UX designers have already worked to make it accessible and understandable to everyone, without exception," says the project's lead architect.

After completing all the steps, users will receive a PDF file consisting of two parts. The first part contains the building plan, blueprints, roof plan, and color scheme. The second part contains the rest of the elements selected by the user, as well as a list of other available solutions and advice on materials. "It is like an album that you can use as a basis for construction, and even during the process you can change some decisions," says Vitalina.

The house plans have been modernized, making them more spacious and brighter. Additionally, each schematic blueprint indicates the approximate furniture layout, which can help people better organize the space. "The plans are more like apartment plans, with more space and air. That's where we stopped; we don't detail the interior itself, as it is a space for personal expression for each person," notes Hoshovska.

When asked if anyone has used Balbek Bureau's construction editor to restore a destroyed house, Vitalina says that such cases have not yet been documented. However, the team is working on a mechanism that will allow users to share their experiences. The architects assure that there is no "right" way to use the editor; even if users borrow only a few original elements from the blueprints, the project has already fulfilled its purpose.

"In the end, we give a general vision, and then everyone adapts these solutions for themselves, because someone may not want to build a porch or a house with a different layout. For us, it's much more important to preserve and document these visual elements and pass them on so that they live on," says Vitalina. The Balbek Bureau plans to use the construction editor to restore one of the damaged rural houses themselves. They have already found the house and are in contact with the owners to begin the restoration.

Frontline and OLX ads: How research is conducted

The study of rural heritage has been going on since June 2022. On average, it takes two months to study one region, says Vitalina Hoshovska. Every research has two directions:

1. Field research, during which volunteers directly study each village, photograph houses, and their elements, and communicate with residents.

2. Remote research, during which the team studies internet sources, examines photos in open access, and even OLX ads.

"These two processes run in parallel, and then we synchronize and start to make a final selection of elements – we gather all the information we find on one board," says Vitalina.

Field research is done by volunteers. There are currently about 25 volunteers working in different regions. To become a volunteer, you need to fill out a form. If you want to help the project but cannot volunteer, the team has created the Batkivska Hata platform, where anyone can upload photos of a house where their parents or grandparents lived.

"At the moment we have two great volunteer architects who are doing quality research because they are maximally interested in it. However, the proximity of the front line and the partial occupation of the eastern oblasts complicate the research process; we do not want to put the volunteers in danger. That is why we studied the Zaporizhzhia and Mykolaiv oblasts mainly remotely, based on online sources," says Hoshovska.

There have been only a few expeditions to these regions, but they did not yield significant results, as practically all the houses in the villages studied were destroyed. Slava Balbek also participated in the project as a volunteer and filmed a whole street of rural houses from 1958 in one of the villages of the Mykolaiv Oblast, which became a valuable base for the project.

"Also, our colleague Anton Syvashenko, who has been in the Armed Forces of Ukraine since the first days of the war, while on the front line in the direction of Zaporizhzhia, took several photos of a half-destroyed house in which valuable decorative elements could be read," Vitalina says.

The team currently plans to focus on those oblasts that can be studied using field methods. In the future, however, they also plan to study the temporarily occupied territories – Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, and Crimea. In doing so, they will rely on the experience of studying the already researched Zaporizhzhia and Mykolaiv oblasts, for which they used online sources.

Greek motifs, stucco, and Mennonites: what's unique about the Zaporizhzhia and Mykolaiv oblasts

The architecture of rural houses in these regions has a very expressive visual component, says Vitalina. This is especially true in Mykolaiv Oblast, which is rich in stucco decoration. "This is the first oblast we've studied where stucco is beginning to appear and even dominate over other decorations. So if Chernihiv Oblast is rich in wood decor, Mykolaiv Oblast is rich in stucco," she says. For Mykolaiv Oblast, they added five stucco options around windows to the online construction editor.

The regions also have "multicultural threads". Some houses in the Mykolaiv Oblast have elements of ancient Greek architecture, which is not surprising since the remains of Greek settlements from the 6th century BC are preserved there.

In the villages of the Mykolaiv Oblast, there is a tradition of building a fence as a part of the outer wall of the house. It turns out that this tradition dates back to the 19th century. "So, we provided for this in the editor – by analogy with how we created the typology of benches on the Kyiv Oblast," notes the architect.

In the Zaporizhzhia Oblast, the Mennonite house – the authentic brick architecture of the Mennonites, Christians from one of the oldest Protestant denominations – has had a serious impact on architecture. "This is the case when the prototype of the region's design code became a completely borrowed type of housing. The traditions of this architecture were brought to the region by Mennonite settlers from the Netherlands," says Hoshovska.

In addition, rural houses in Zaporizhzhia Oblast have a wide variety of brick and wooden gables, as well as belt courses – brick lines that surround the house along the perimeter and emphasize its tectonics.

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New opportunities offered by the project

In almost two years, RE:Ukraine Villages has become a cultural, educational, and scientific platform that is already attracting the attention of foreigners, says the project's chief architect Vitalina Hoshovska.

"Our project has interested experts from Turkey and Israel, as the construction editor format can be applied to the experience of other countries. For example, in the reconstruction of housing after natural disasters or military conflicts in other regions. It seems to me that the potential of this project is limitless, and perhaps in the next stages it will be scaled up and solve global problems as well," the researcher notes.

The project has grown in size, with about 50 experts now working on RE:Ukraine Villages, including 20 people from the office and additional digital developers and volunteers. In 2023, the project received support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and won the Act to Support accelerator program.

The value lies not only in the construction editor itself but also in the research, which can become a powerful pre-project analysis during post-war reconstruction to create something new. Once the team has studied all the regions of Ukraine, their findings can be used not only by those who want to restore their homes, but also by architects, designers, illustrators, for art or commercial purposes, and science.

"It is a kind of visual guide where you can see and learn about the features of the architecture of rural houses of our people over the past 100 years," says Vitalina. She adds that in addition to the practical function of the construction editor, a "national" function has been added, which helps to rethink and reflect on the authenticity of Ukrainian villages.

"They are trying to destroy us, but we are holding on to our own with all our might, defending our right to life, country, and architecture. It seems to me that this project is a small brick in our national resistance against Russian aggression because architecture is a reflection of ourselves," concludes Vitalina.