RE:Ukraine Villages, a project to rebuild war-damaged homes

24.03.2023

Re:Ukraine Villages helps people rebuild their homes.

TheBalbek Bureau in Ukraine has launched a project to help people made homeless by Russia's invasion. The project is called Re:Ukraine Villages and targets rural areas.

Re:Ukraine provides a virtual tool that people can use to rebuild their homes that have been totally or partially destroyed by shelling.

What Balbek's online program is all about

The architects behind Re:Ukraine aim to: make reconstruction work simple and accessible to those on low incomes; ensure that the particularities of peasant architecture are preserved.

To build the virtual tool, the Balbek Bureau researched the specifics of Ukrainian rural architecture and then developed an algorithm to turn the information into a real program. In developing the latter, the architects took into account the different needs of the beneficiaries. The tool thus provides the public with the typical scenery of the region and a multitude of options. Moreover, the solution they developed is flexible, depending on the resources available to each family.

Users enter data about the desired house into the program and it responds with instructions in a .pdf file. The document contains isometrics, plans, sketches, scans of the facade and a technical description. The manual also contains recommendations for finishing materials.

Nothing has been overlooked by the creators of the program, not even the benches near the gate, an important symbol of the Ukrainian village. The virtual tool developed by Balbek Bureau provides a database of the most used models of benches.

The Re:Ukraine Villages initiative focused on the Kiev region, but Balbek Bureau aims to expand the project to other parts of Ukraine.

Read more on the official project website: link

Below you can see the presentation video of RE:Ukraine Villages:

More on rural architecture: