HOUSE
From housing we moved to the topic of the
FAMILY
COMMUNITY
This semester was devoted to housing:
from topologies to technologies, from old
times to the future. We discussed how the
lifestyle affects the architecture and how
architecture affects the lifestyle.
In the Humanities course we studied the
history of housing: how people lived and
built throughout the history. We looked at
the works of the great architects of the 20th
century who changed the traditional ap-
proaches and started the modern trends.
And as a result we had to extrapolate
what will be the ideal house of the future.
changes that happen to the institute of fam-
ily and what happens to neighbourhoods
and communities.
The main project of this semester was to
design a house for a real client. We were
given a plot in the old district of Kharkiv,
we had to coordinate with each other and
to integrate into the existing context. The
challenge was to meet the needs of our
clients and create value to the city at the
same time.
The Skills block helped to express our ideas
in drawings and schemes. And the Tech-
nical classes gave us the idea of how our
designs could be implemented. We exper-
imented with the main building materials:
wood, concrete and metal, and discussed
the iconic buildings in terms of construc-
tions.
Photo by Tatiana Telnova
SKILLS
During this semester I learned what I long
dreamt to learn: axonometrics, perspective,
and shadows.

I never learned to draw before and could

not distinguish between different kinds of
architectural drawings, and when to use
what. I mastered the 45° axonometrics, got
to know the 120° isometrics, fell in love with
one and two-focused perspective.

I believe, our classes gave me some skills

to express my ideas on paper and I began
to do so more often.
AXONOMETRICS
AND
AXONOMETRIC SECTION
We had to measure our own refrig-
erator and to draw it in 45° axono-
metrics with all the food and stuff.

How to make a chicken in the fridge

look architectural - that is the ques-
tion!

We had to generalize the food to

basic 3d shapes and their combi-
nations: cylinders, boxes, spheres,
ellipsoids.

Drawing the fridge in 3D makes

your mind blow and sectioning the
fridge with all the food makes it
even more so.

At the end I loved the 45°degree

axonometrics and will use it in my
architectural drawings.
CHEST OF DRAWERS
IN PERSPECTIVE
I experimented with different parameters of
the perspective drawings: angle, distance
from the picture plane, etc

I learned to draw the perspective using the

plan view and without it.

The depth was the most tricky dimention,

but I mastered the method of diagonals and
the grid.
ROOM WITH SHADOWS
IN PERSPECTIVE
We had to draw an imaginary room and to
depict shadows: from the window and from
one light source.

We had to calculate the areas where the

shadows intersect and to decide upon the
shades of grey to capture different types of
shadows.
THE LIGHT WORKSHOP
During this workshop we had to explore the
role of light in architecture. We went to the
excursion and observed the light pollution
of the city, how the lighting works for archi-
tecture in the city environment.

We had to experiment with different ligh

reflecting materials and surfaces, to explore
the drawing capacities of light, to look how
shadows work on different surfaces.

Group project with: Tatiana Telnova and

Maria Tselik

Tutors: Malgorzata Kuciewicz and

Simone De Iacobis from CENTRALA
THE PHOTOGRAPHY
WORKSHOP
When does the communal life begin? May-
be, when you know the color of your neigh-
bors’ underwear because it is hanged to
dry in the common yard? Or when you feel
like building a table with a roof outdoors
and you know that neighbors will use this
table together with you? I have collected
traces of a vivid communal life in the area
that I explored: the road repaired with
bricks, flowerbeds, simple structures for
drying clothes, a lot of benches and tables
and quite complex structures of tables and
benches covered with roofs.

I noticed that this kind of activity begins with

certain density of population. I made my
research in the area of the 2-story houses
with spacious green yards between them.
At the same time there are almost no signs
of the communal life in the private sector
and in the areas with 5 and more story
houses and people from those areas come
to join these simple, human and attractive
communal spaces and life. Tutor:
Laurian Ghinitoiu
HUMANITIES
During this semester we studied the histor-
ical housing, the biographies and work of
the greatest architects of the 20th century:
Mies van der Rohe, Le Coubusier, Adolf
Loos, and others.

We discussed the iconic houses and stories

behind them.

We read essays and discussed how people

lived before, how they live now and how
they will live in the future.
THE IDEAL HOUSE
The dream of Home, as a place where
you are well, where you are loved and
accepted, occupies an important place in
the hierarchy of dreams, and may have the
same rationale as belief in a higher being,
in the afterlife - an irrational belief in that
somewhere might be a good, unreachable
image, a mirage. The image of the ideal
home is an abstraction, due to the prop-
erty of the psyche, but for each it acquires
specific features absorbed from the culture,
formed from personal memories. But are
they unique?
Based on data collected using the Swedish
Internet resource for the sale and purchase
of real estate, Hemnet architects have
developed a “perfect home” project for 2
million people. This is a square house of
120 square meters, wooden, traditional for
Sweden red in color, with a terrace on the
second floor, a second light, two bedrooms
and two bathrooms. I looked at the plans
of this house and thought that I could enjoy
living in it. Obviously, there are universal
principles that make the house not only a
“machine for housing”, but a “perfect house”
for millions of people.
Eileen Gray wrote 100 years ago: “Home is
not a car for housing. This is the shell of a
person, his release, his spiritual emanation.
”But we see that in the modern world, most
are quite an iPhone and an IKEA cabinet,
everyone wants good and the same. There-
fore, the ideal home of the future will be uni-
versal, simple, with a good design, it can be
assembled by yourself and ordered online.
Generation Z wants all the same and face-
less. Houses of the future will be white,
black or silver, like an iPhone. Everyone will
like them, you can go to another country,
give your house to another family, but in
another place you will be able to rent about
the same house, which will be just as good.
Houses will be like hotels, airports and
shopping centers, faceless, comfortable,
ergonomic.
The ideal home of the future will be as-
sembled simply so that even a layman can
make a home for himself. We love the IKEA
wardrobe, which we assembled ourselves,
more than the wardrobe, bought ready-
made, we love and appreciate hand made.
Objective ideality does not exist, it is only
in our imagination, we tend to consider as
ideal what we love, and love what we have
put our work to. There is the British Grand
Designs program on how people build “ideal
houses” for themselves; these houses are
very different. Someone builds a house, re-
working a medieval castle, someone builds
a house on a hillside of straw blocks, some-
one remodels a barge or a church to build a
house or builds in the forest with improvised
materials with their own hands - the range
of these houses is huge. Usually, having
designed a house, having survived the tor-
ments and joys of construction, people get
an “ideal house”. The point is not in objec-
tive characteristics, but in the fact that an
emotional connection arises: they love their
home, like a child born in pain. But these
English builders of individual houses from
the past generation, which want everything
perfect and unique - home, work, rest. The
new generation is more inclined to love
versatility.
Oscar Hansen, author of the concept of
open architecture, said that architecture nature was very close to perfection. And
is only a perceptual background - a back- for the planet, it’s best if people stop living
ground for the perception of life. Architec- in houses at all, but will sleep on the grass
ture users should be able to change it, under the open sky and communicate via
adapt it to their life. In today’s world, the telepathy, like in the movie “Beautiful and
rate of change is greater than ever. The Green”.
houses of the future must be adaptive so
that a person can assemble, disassemble,
remake his own house, change the back-
ground. And then suddenly I saw my ideal house of
the future on the Instagram:
If our generation does not think about the
future of the planet, then the next gener-
ations will have nowhere to live. Houses
should be the minimum size and consume a
minimum of resources. Just 100 years ago,
Adolf Loos proposed “to build traditionally”
and change this principle only in case of
emergency. Now it is even more relevant, if
not in terms of technology, then in terms of
materials - local, natural and renewable. We
will assemble them from universal modules,
and the modules will be made by robots.
The houses of the future will remind us of
the traditional dwellings of different areas
and fit into the context: in Ukraine it can be
houses made of earth and bricks, in Swe-
den made of wood, somewhere half-tim-
bered, but equally comfortable and versatile
inside.

The ideal house of the future will stand on

its feet so as not to destroy the grass cover,
Designed by Architect Espen Surnevik
and the owners will have to move it from
Photo by Rasmus Norlander
time to time so that the grass cover can be
restored. Perhaps the perfect house is a
tree house.

A friend of mine said that two things were

important in the house: location and loca-
tion. The ideal house is not so much about
the inner space as about the environment
and the place. A small hut in the forest is
more ideal than a large house among the
asphalt-concrete jungle. Perhaps the 15
square-meter Cabanon Le Corbusier of ply-
wood surrounded by elegant Mediterranean
COMMUNITY VS GANGS
People used to live in communities of
neighbors for thousands of years. The rea-
son for communal living was the human na-
ture itself: it takes a lot of time and labor to
raise a child. To use the help of neighbors
and to help back was necessary for a single
person as well as for a nuclear family, as
we know it today, to survive.
In Koran we find the traces of the ancient
neighbors related ethics:
“One who wants to be loved by Allah must
speak the truth, be trustworthy and be a
good neighbor.” “If you make a stew, add
some extra water and take care of your
neighbor.” Mohammed’s recommendations
could be summarized as follows: one has
to be very kind to ones neighbor, because if
one is in need, the neighbor is the first one
to help.
Mutual help between neighbors was a com-
mon thing until recently. Even in the 60th of
the last century in Kharkiv it was common
to organize “toloka” to build a house. Neigh-
bors came for one day to make walls from
wood and clay. Overall communication with
neighbors was closer than today. My grand-
mother used to recollect how they gathered
to celebrate holidays together with neigh-
bors and how they went to watch movies to
the neighbor who was the first to buy a TV.
She sounded like it was fun. That fun I have
never had, since I have never had a chance
to be closely integrated into the neighbor-
hood community.
My grand-grandmother lived in Khrushev-
ka. After she stopped working most of her
communication was with neighbors. She
was a center of a group of elderly women
who gathered every evening to spend some
time together in the open air. Her neighbor
friends came to help when she was sick.
My aunt since her childhood was close-
ly engaged into the communication with
neighbors. As she was young it was a com-
pany of teenagers who skipped the school
together. Afterwards it was a community
of young mothers who killed time chatting
while their children were playing in a sand-
box. Even in her 40s she is very close with
her neighbors, they do some volunteer work
for the army together. She feels obliged to
serve a cake and champagne to her neigh-
bor girlfriends on her birthdays.
My relations with neighbors are not so
close. They are mostly limited to giving
money loans. The neighbors on the right
take small loans, and return the money
whenever they have a chance to. They
occasionally bring some strawberries or
cherries from their garden to express their
gratitude. The neighbors on the left are dis-
tant relatives, they also took few loans, but
they never gave the money back. Other-
wise, our communication never goes further
than the ritual “how do you do” questions.
After I quit my first job and found myself
a full time mother, separated with my still
working and busy friends and longing for
any communication, I wished I could find
friends among my neighbors. I was lucky
to find one friend among the mothers, one
from 5 or more families with children in our
street.
From that time I carried out the wisdom that
people still need their neighbors as much as
they needed them for thousands of years,
but for various reasons the communication
 What could help us to live happier enjoying
good relations with our neighbors? Imagine
we could live closer to our best Facebook
or Instagram friends and have a chance to
see them in the course of our daily routine.
The good news is that this is actually a cur-
rent trend in the world, mostly in Northern
Europe and America. Many people choose
to live in communities which take a vast
variety of forms: from families sharing a
common outdoor or indoor space, kitchens
or laundry to elderly people living together
and caring of ill children. Happier communal
living could be the future of many people.
New technologies of communication ena-
ble us to find our perfect neighbors based
on the common interests and values. It is
amazing that it actually will not be some-
thing new, but on the contrary, the return to
the ancient style of living on a new level.
Source: pixeltweaks/Pixabay

with neighbors is very limited nowadays.

10 out of 11 clients in our semester project
didn’t want to have any contact to their
neighbors. One of the reasons is that peo-
ple lack the trust to each other. The level of
trust in our society is tragically low.
STUDIO:
THE HOUSE

This was the central project of the second
semester. Each of us had a client - a real
person. My client was Julia Kolesnikova - a
young woman who wanted a luxury style
house with “nature” seen from all windows
and no contact with neighbors.
We were given a plot of four city blocks
close to the city center, but with one or two
story-houses, few of them new, but most old
and deteriorating, some of them regarded
as historical, typical for 19th century build-
ing. This is where I had to put my grand-
style house and find a matching plot.
We came to the conclusion that density in
the urban environment is vital and big plots
in the center of the city are inappropriate.
I had to shrink the plot: I could not surround
the house by the nature, so I decided to let
the natural patios inside the house.
This is how emerged the complex shape
of the house inspired by Rye`s Nishigava
Weekend house.

In the beginning I tried to occupy as much

space as possible, but then our tutors made
us think not only about the values request-
ed by our clients but also about the values
that our houses could add to the city.
We had to create elevations of the streets
from our plot. The task was to merge pano-
ramas in Photoshop and to trace the hous-
es, fences and staffage in Rhino. This was a
part of the study of the existing context.
We were given four blocks in the historical
part of the city called Moskakivka where we
could integrate our houses into the existing
context.

We draw the master plan in Rhino and cre-

ated a model of our plot in scale 1:200.

This was the way to study the context and

to choose appropriate plots for the houses.

Group project: Alexandrova Alice

Pylypenko Kateryna
Kolomiitseva Mariia
Telnova Tatiana
Sokolova Anna
Pylypenko Anna
Kozub Nataliya
Legeyda Dmytro
Prokopchuk Anna
Mozgova Olga
Sanzharevskaya Polina
We had one interview with our client. Based
on it we had to understand the needs and
define the values of the future houses.

My client is a young woman who loves to

take selfies, pictures and to be pictured.
Shortly, she is an Instagram blogger with
hundreds of followers.

She told me that she plans to live in the

house together with her partner and po-
tentially with two kids. She is a party beast
and loves to hold parties, to cook, and to
have friends for a bottle of wine and a nice
movie. A home theater and a bar were the
special requirement.

My client is a luxury woman who loves the

luxury life. She wanted a spacious bath-
room and a spacious bedroom, as well as a
big closet for her sound wardroub.

As for the atmosphere, she wanted a lot of

light and air in the house and “wild nature”
views from all windows.

As an architect I had to find a compromise

between the requested “rancho” and the
possibilites of the city-based plots.
Rectangular house on the West-
ern border of the plot, hidden from
the street behind a large front-
garden.

Long rectangular house in the

middle of the plot, creating a front
garden, seen from the street and
a back garden, hidden behind the
house
Cubic house in the middle of the
plot with second floor terrace and
separate garage.

House on the “red line” of the

street with a complex shape
inspired by R. Nishigava`s Week-
end house. The position close to
the left southern
This small model combines the
new typology when the house is
along the red line of the street and
faces the big back garden and the
exploration of open and closed
spaces and zones inside.

This topology was inspired by

Frank Lloyd Wright’s houses. This
one-story house occupies the
most of the plot among other de-
signs this was my attempt to justify
a big garden. It is totally closed
towards the street and open into
the big garden.
A rectangular house in the middle
of the plot open both at the front
semi-public and the back and
private gardens.

The continuing exploration of the

house with two wings and placed
in the middle of the plot, creating
two gardens: a front one and a
back one.
THE SADDLE HOUSE
I liked the idea of this house because of the
second floor terrace facing the East and
West and accessed from both wings of the
house.

It features the double light and the two-lev-

els floor in the large living room based on
the natural relief of the plot.

The need of two staircases is a drawback of

the design.

The proposed construction was with wood-

en framework.
THE ONE-STORY HOUSE
This topology was inspired by Frank Lloyd
Wright’s houses.

This one-story house occupies the most of

the plot among other designs this was my
attempt to justify a big garden. It is totally
closed towards the street and open into the
big garden.

The proposed construction was with wood-

en framework.
THE WEEKEND HOUSE
This design was chosen for the final project
for the clarity of its idea: three patios inside
the perimeter of the house create diverse
views of the garden, create privacy and
shade.

It features the relief in the cinema zone

based on the natural relief and the double
light. And it provides millions of possbili-
ties for selfies.I could not open the house
into the garden for the sake of privacy, so I
desided to let the garden inside the house
towards the open house core.

The construction could be made of wooden

columns and thin concrete slabs.
STUDIO:
THE TABLE
We had to design the table legs with a giv-
en table top. Seven table tops were sectors
of a big circular table. The material was
plywood of 18 mm.

I chose the construction that resembled the

3D puzzle: the elements of the legs almost
didn’t need any connections, except for
attaching the table top.

The plywood elements were cut automat-

ically and it took me an hour to assemble
the table.

The idea behid the project was that 7 stu-

dents design 7 different table egs for the
same table tops which form a big circle
table when put together.

We are all different, but together we are a

team.
TECTONICS
In the classes of the techinical block we
learned about the types of constructions
and main building materials: wood, con-
crete, and metal.

Theory is useless without practice. During

this semester we worked a lot in the work-
shop and learned the pecularities of the
materials from own experience.
TRUSS MODELS
We made small models of trusses from cof-
fee sticks. It was the small scale, but even
then we were learning by doing.

From the first steps I began to think about

joints and at the end I came up with the
small model similar to the one that we later
made in bigger scale, first from wood and
later from metal.
MASONRY
It is impossible to understand the masonry
without practicing on real bricks. We started
with bricks in scale 1:10. Though it is not
completely the same, it gives the idea .

We learned how to make windows, arches,

and domes, how to make perforation and
curved surfaces.
CONCRETE
We had to design a concrete structure,
make the casting and create the structure
from concrete.

My idea was to make an element which is

simultaneosly a column and a part of the
slab.

I chose the organic looking shape and

made a prototype from modeling clay.
The casting was from polystyrene foam.
It worked well, but was not reusable. So, I
could not make several element and con-
nect them into a slab as planned.
WOODEN TRUSS
Group project: Alexandrova Alice
To make the truss we used boards 2000 x
Pylypenko Kateryna
20 x 30 mm and metal plates.
Kolomiitseva Mariia
Telnova Tatiana
The metal plate helped to make the joints
Sokolova Anna
invisible and elegant.
Pylypenko Anna
Kozub Nataliya
Legeyda Dmytro
Prokopchuk Anna
Mozgova Olga
Sanzharevskaya Polina
METAL TRUSS
For the metal truss we used aluminium pro- Group project: Alexandrova Alice
file 20 x 30 x 2 mm and 2000 mm long. Pylypenko Kateryna
Kolomiitseva Mariia
The joints were made with metal plates by Telnova Tatiana
ataching the profile on the both sides. Sokolova Anna
Pylypenko Anna
Kozub Nataliya
Legeyda Dmytro
Prokopchuk Anna
Mozgova Olga
Sanzharevskaya Polina
REINFORCED CONCRETE
BEAM
Together with our teacher of technical block
we calculated the bearing capacity of the
reinforced concrete beam of 2000 x 70 x
100 mm, then we made it and in 28 days
we will load it until it breakes in order to
check if our calculations were correct.

Group project: Alexandrova Alice

Pylypenko Kateryna
Kolomiitseva Mariia
Telnova Tatiana
Sokolova Anna
Pylypenko Anna
Kozub Nataliya
Legeyda Dmytro
Prokopchuk Anna
Mozgova Olga
Sanzharevskaya Polina
EXCURSION
TO VG HORSE CLUB
This complex was designed by
Drozdov&Partners. It demonstrates ultimate
simplicity and functionality along with effec-
tiveness achieved by the use of standard
industrial materials.

The key design feature is the facade of

the main building: it is decorated with tree
trunks that are lighted from inside in dark
hours.

Sometimes an architect has to learn a lot

about the subject domain, in this case about
horses, in order to deliver a good design.
This work was possible due to our dear
teachers, tutors and curators:

Oleg Drozdov
Kuba Snopek
Lawrence Barth

SKILLS

Alexandra Nikitenko
Yaroslav Yakovlev
Andrey Pavlov

STUDIO

Katerina Yolkina
Alina Yesaian
Ashley Bigham
Erik Herrmann

HUMANITIES

Katerina Shumikhina
Borys Filonenko
Dmytriy Zayets

TECTONICS

Alexandra Nikitenko
Andrey Bedakov

LIGHT WORKSHOP

Malgorzata Kuciewicz
Simone De Iacobis

PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP

Laurian Ghinitoiu