KHARKIV, UKRAINE, May 9—Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov reported that an international architecture competition had been announced to upgrade Kharkiv’s Northern Saltivka, the largest residential neighborhood in Ukraine.

Russian attacks destroyed or damaged a lot of residential buildings there, and the competition aims to solve this “pressing challenge of rebuilding” and improve the lives of the Northern Saltivka residents.

The Norman Foster Foundation (NFF) was one of the initiators of the architecture competition. It’s led by British architect Norman Foster, who participated in developing a master plan for rebuilding and recovery of Kharkiv in the aftermath of Russian aggression. A competition will be a part of that master plan.

NFF writes, “The main tasks for the participants [of the competition] are to develop a modular system capable of retrofitting existing concrete panel housing blocks, to improve the safety of buildings and energy efficiency, and to create a comfortable public space around them.”

This competition is a local and international initiative of the Kharkiv City Council, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) within the framework of the UN4UkrainianCities initiative, the Norman Foster Foundation, Arup, and the Kharkiv Architects Group, among others.

The mayor noted that all communication, including the presentation, must be in English. The deadline for applications is September 12, 2024. Detailed information on the terms of the competition is available here.

Northern Saltivka was heavily damaged by Russian shelling and airstrikes in the first year of the Russian full-scale invasion. This Kharkiv neighborhood is the largest residential area in Ukraine that housed about 400,000 people before February 24, 2022. Russians still shell it often. 

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