This project proposes a strategic extension of space for new businesses and young entrepreneurs. It intends to reinstate manufacturing and productivity as key features of Charkiv’s linear city by shifting production spaces into the residential zone. 

Examining existing retail structures within the district – in particular the produkti – urban analysis identified six potential sites for the construction of new retail units.

These units accumulate around existing produktis and establish sub-centres of local supply. Additionally, they provide social functions for the benefit of the residential community. 

Each unit is a timber lightweight structure and allows for self-build. Distinct shop windows are orientated towards the street and form the characteristic architectural element of the proposal.

Anna Barbieri

bachelor student
TU Vienna

The project Hotel-Kommuna faces the ambivalent ideological and architectural heritage of Ukraine's former socialist system. The highly ideological typology of communal-housing is being reworked into a concept for a Soviet-style theme hotel, allowing a co-existence of real inhabitants and hotel-guests. The transformation process gives way to implement once planned, but never realized, communal amenities like library, sauna and play-rooms, but also reveals the necessity for additional living space, which can be built in a re-articulated version of communal housing in a human scale. The transformation has the potential to improve the living conditions and to create jobs for the local community.

Bernhard Steinmann

master student
TU Vienna