David Borodiy. From Sketch to Concrete: Why Universities Don't Teach Architects Reality
There is one systemic hole in the usual picture of academic training of architects: students are taught to invent, but not to bring the process to a result. The university is like an incubator of a "big idea", where the concept is valued above serial performance. This raises a generation that thinks in images and renders, but often has no idea what real materials this picture will be made of, who will connect the engineering networks and how all this will work within the budget and according to standards.
There are things that no curator in the classroom will teach you. A real object will instantly sober you up from illusions: pipes need to be laid out somewhere, not just said that they are there and provide comfort. For a young architect, this is painful, but it is precisely such situations that lay the foundation for understanding that a project lives in dialogue with hundreds of people and limitations, and that at each stage decisions must be made based not on an ideal picture, but on real logistics, technologies, and budget.
David Borodiy, a young practitioner at Archimatika and refounder of the architectural education platform ArchiLife, told PRAGMATIKA.MEDIA about the difference between the educational concept and real work. His observation is not a claim, but a statement of the default educational approach: a real project requires discipline, communication, and "practical muscles," which are simply not taught in most architectural and civil engineering universities.
David Borodiy, architect at Archimatika and refounder of the architectural education platform ArchiLife
PRAGMATIKA.MEDIA: What gaps in modern architectural education have you felt when faced with real-world challenges?
David Borodiy: The main problem is that at university, architectural projects never reach the next stages. You do a project on the main subject — architectural design — and stop at the concept. You detail a little, conditionally arrange the structure, but you almost always ignore engineering communications. As a result, you get something like a sketch project stage, and no one goes further. Moreover, even this concept is often unrealistic, because the teachers themselves rarely have practical experience: many have graduated from a master's degree, went to graduate school and became a teacher without working on real engineering problems.
Constructivism can still be understood thanks to typical solutions. Previously, architects often performed part of the work of a designer, especially with panel or prefabricated reinforced concrete. With the advent of the monolith, it seemed that everything became easier, but many teachers do not understand engineering at all. We had such subjects as the basics of the theory of structures, the resistance of materials, theoretical mechanics, and the basics of engineering systems, but everything came down to tasks detached from the main project — no one suggested bringing the educational project to working documentation. During the entire period of study, only once were we offered to make structures for our own project — a cottage, and that was thanks to a teacher who considered it correct, but this is not systematically accepted as a rule in education.
The student never gets past the “P” (project) or “P” (working documentation) stage — it’s just “drawing” nodes for a more serious look of the project drawing sheet, where you actually copy pictures that look like nodes from websites or manuals without understanding the essence. Here’s the main gap: students draw a wall as two lines without thinking about materials, thickness, or multiplicity of dimensions. There’s no feeling that everything is a real physical object.
The combination of wood, metal and reinforced concrete in the construction gives each of Vlasne Misto's objects an individual character. Photo courtesy of Vlasne Misto
Another gap is economics. No one teaches how to calculate feasibility: for example, a gallery building seems interesting, but 20–40% of the area is used for transits that are not sold, reducing the ratio of “selling area / total area”. Projects do not pay off. I do not understand why I had to teach teachers to analyze the context - I did it for myself, and then convinced them. In four years of undergraduate study, only one teacher really understood the principles and explained them. And this is very indicative.
"If a young architect without experience has created an interesting concept and they decide to implement it, only when you are involved in cooperation with practitioners will you be able to gain real skills," — David Borodiy
PM: How can competitions organized by developers help young architects move from concepts to practical implementation?
D. B.: To be honest, competitions probably won't help you move from concepts to practical implementation. Because competitions are usually held at the concept stage. And there's no point in holding a competition at the "P" stage, because the "P" stage always takes a lot of time and resources, so you need a tender, not a competition. When you prepare work for a competition, you always end up with a concept. To make it realistic, you'll still have to collaborate with those who have experience in practical implementation.
And if you, a young architect with no experience, have created an interesting concept and decided to implement it, only when you are involved in cooperation with practitioners will you be able to gain real skills. But it often happens differently. To implement a student concept, the customer may hire a company that simply works cheaper. And it will most likely not look for interesting ways to preserve the appearance of your project. When the saturation with constructive elements, engineering networks begins, when the “simplification” begins, everything will quickly slide back to traditional methods. And then the aesthetics of the concept will either blur, become impossible, or disappear altogether.
An example of a building with a bold cantilever: the WoZoCo residential complex in Amsterdam, designed by the architectural firm MVRDV. Photo source: MVRDV
Here's a story, for example: in the past, when a reinforced concrete slab overhang was made and it turned out too big, columns were added. Now, instead, you can use metal trusses — that way, the console turns out to be larger, lighter, more aesthetic, and technically more efficient. But not everyone knows about it yet; some even say it's "Photoshopped."
You can design a bold console, and in the end you will get an ordinary ceiling on columns, simply because the performers do not know how or do not want to implement complex things. Therefore, if competitions are organized without involving a high-quality team that knows how to implement complex solutions and has modern experience, then the concept will simply not reach practice.
Competitions can open the way to collaboration, show that you exist, that you are ambitious, and that you are worth paying attention to. But for implementation, you need an experienced specialist who is ready to get creative at the "P" stage and respond to a young ambition so that the concept becomes a reality.
IV. Anatoly Nemtsov and Mykhailo Karnaukhov: Practice without embellishment, or how architects work in real conditions
When a concept leaves the pages of presentations and begins to be realized on the construction site, the architect is faced with a new reality: regulations, budgets, engineering requirements and dozens of approvals. For some, it is a list of restrictions, for others, an opportunity to turn each challenge into part of an architectural idea.
We talk about how to integrate creativity into tough technical and economic conditions, preserve the author's vision, and at the same time increase the capitalization of the project with Anatoly Nemtsov, head of the in-house studio LAWA Architects, developer of Vlasne Misto, and Mikhail Karnaukhov, architect of the KUDIN architects workshop and former teacher at the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture.
They spoke frankly about the educational vacuum that causes architecture graduates to enter the profession without sufficient training, and about the competitive illusions that are often shattered in practice. They also spoke about the tools and principles of work that help architects not only survive in a world of limitations, but also use them to create a high-quality and recognizable environment.
Anatoly Nemtsov, head of the in-house studio LAWA Architects
PRAGMATIKA.MEDIA: How do you integrate economic and engineering constraints into the architectural process to create projects that are not only aesthetically pleasing, but also on budget and capitalize?
Anatoly Nemtsov: Communication with the customer adds a vision to the project — an understanding of where it should go. For our part, we try to support this vision and not contradict it. If we offer certain solutions, then only those that strengthen the concept, and then we integrate them into the project.
As for the regulatory framework, it does not create obstacles when you want to do it qualitatively. There are, of course, pre-agreed "red lines", boundaries of plots, etc., but if this is a facility of one owner, we can change them in accordance with our concept and coordinate them at the level of a detailed plan of the territory.
We implement existing developments: approximately 80% of them are based on previous concepts of the detailed plan, and where they contradict us, we adapt or change them. For example, if the plan calls for a passage in a certain place, we agree with it that it will be a pedestrian zone with the possibility of passage only for special vehicles - fire engines, ambulances, etc. This is how we regulate traffic according to the needs of the project.
“The culture of information fast food is very widespread now: everyone wants quick results. And there is a temptation to believe that architectural work is easy: just press a button or write a prompt,” — Anatoly Nemtsov
This is not exactly a consensus in the classic sense, where each side gives in. It is more like the absence of disagreements — there are only procedures that must be followed by law to reach a common result. In essence, within your area, you can do whatever you see fit, as long as you adhere to the infrastructure requirements: provide the required number of schools and kindergartens, adhere to accessibility radii, distances, and fire breaks.
Usually, detailed plans of territories are initially drawn based on the vision of the designer, who makes the division at his discretion. When the site reaches the architects, contractors and customers, they may see it differently. Then we offer our vision, and there is a renegotiation. As a result, the plan remains within the general boundaries, but with separate lines or zones adjusted to the real concept.
Mikhail Karnaukhov, architect of the KUDIN architects workshop
Mikhail Karnaukhov: To be honest, all these frameworks and limitations are, of course, a challenge, but we always try to turn them into advantages. Each limitation can become an additional bonus, a detail that will make the object unique. Because, you know, inventing something without any frameworks is sometimes even more difficult. Abstract freedom is often paralyzing, and clear parameters set a starting point for finding solutions.
Therefore, our task is not to circumvent the limitations, but to integrate them into the project in such a way that they work for its value. And this, in my opinion, is the measure of the architect's skill: to turn complexity into an advantage, and limitations into a distinctive architectural feature. It can be an additional function, a unique element, or even a new way of organizing space.
Restrictions exist everywhere, and not only in the form of our DBN. Each country has its own specific rules, sometimes logical, sometimes strange, and sometimes even absurd. But they are part of our professional landscape, and the ability to work with them is an integral part of architectural practice. It is not something that hinders creativity, but rather an environment in which it flourishes.
All Vlasne Misto facilities — both residential and infrastructure — are designed taking into account the context and concept of a cluster city. Photo courtesy of Vlasne Misto
PM: What changes in architectural education are needed to prepare architects to effectively collaborate with developers and engineers, as is happening at Vlasne Misto? What prevents young professionals from immediately diving into real practical tasks today?
A. N.: First of all, young specialists lack the ability to "sit on the fifth point." That is, the ability to concentrate, work deeply and for a long time. The culture of information fast food is very widespread now: everyone wants quick results. They see on the Internet how something is done - a schematic diagram, a slider that changes everything in real time, or an algorithm that generates a beautiful picture. And there is a temptation to believe that architectural work is easy: just press a button or write a prompt.
The problem is that such a “simplified” architectural thought gradually neuters critical thinking. People who choose this path eventually become performers, not authors. Instead, those who work on developing their thinking, on themselves as individuals, are more in touch with the material and understand the deep processes — they are the ones who eventually become the people who form the vision, define the tasks, and manage the process. And then others implement their ideas.
Anatoly Nemtsov: "The competition is a great tool to at least face reality a little and try yourself as an architect, to feel the true scope of the task and the level of competition"
M.K .: The problem of education really exists. I myself taught for many years at the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture and saw that graduates of architectural faculties often enter the professional environment insufficiently prepared for its pace and demands. As a practicing architect, I tried to explain to students what they would actually encounter and to convey that architecture is not only about creativity, but also about the ability to work within specific conditions and limitations.
But a university cannot always recreate the real tasks of a development or engineering project. And here my colleagues and I came to the conclusion: the main task of education is to teach a student to think and solve problems that he has never encountered before. Because today there are one DBN, tomorrow there are others; the norms are constantly changing, and you need to be able to navigate in this field.
It is not about the mechanical implementation of regulatory points "A", "B", "C", but about the ability to find the necessary information, adapt to new requirements and at the same time preserve the architectural idea. Therefore, even during training, we sometimes set tasks for students in a semi-game form: they did not always fully recreate real conditions, but they forced them to think, look for solutions, work with non-standard situations. And this, in my opinion, is the best preparation for real work.
The Vlasne Misto open-plan cottage is one of the housing options for new residents. Photo courtesy of Vlasne Misto
PM: Can architectural competitions become a springboard into the profession for young architects, help them make a name for themselves and gain a foothold in the market? Why, in your opinion, do such competitions rarely end with the implementation of submitted solutions?
A. N.: Yes, competitions can always help. If there were more of them and if they really led to implementation, the effect would be much more tangible. A competition is a great tool to at least face reality a little and try yourself as an architect, to feel the true scope of the task and the level of competition.
I have seen many examples when even famous bureaus won the competition, and then something strange happened: either the winner was not paid for his work, or they said: “well done, but we will implement the solution that took second or third place”. This devalues the very meaning of victory. In Lviv, for example, there was a competition that they won, but the project was never implemented due to lack of budget. And 20 years later, a new competition was held on the same site, effectively nullifying the results of the previous one. But this is not only a Ukrainian problem, although it happens more often in our country. Europe is not perfect either.
M.K .: Architectural competitions are a bit of a different story, as they have different tasks and dynamics, but I can say that many of our students have participated in very real competitions. And this is always an invaluable experience: when there is an open competition where both professionals and students can apply, you suddenly get the opportunity to compare your level, your skills, and your approach with the works of famous architects.
The Vlasne Misto open-plan cottage is one of the housing options for new residents. Photo courtesy of Vlasne Misto
V. Andriy Bidakov: the technical backend of architectural success
In modern construction, the line between a "beautiful idea" and its technical implementation is often thinner than a drawing on paper. It is on this line that engineer and scientist Andriy Bidakov works - Doctor of Technical Sciences, developer of state building codes and international expert in the design of wooden structures. Experience of internships at leading European universities, participation in the development of standards and creation of his own software have given him the rare ability to speak the same language with architects, while thinking in terms of accuracy, economic feasibility and durability.
Andriy Bidakov, Doctor of Technical Sciences, developer of state building codes and international expert in the design of wooden structures
In the Vlasne Misto project, Bidakov is responsible for synchronizing the work of architects and engineers on individual projects that are built on the basis of wooden structures. His goal is to ensure that there are no design "gaps" at the implementation stage and that no good idea disappears due to technical misunderstandings, and that the approval stage no longer resembles, in his words, "jumping on a rake like on a trampoline," when every mistake noticed in time leads to new costs and delays.
In this conversation, we will focus on two key topics: team synchronization and modern engineering solutions that help Vlasne Misto reduce costs without compromising on architectural design.
“The presence of certain problems is not an obstacle if proper cooperation between experienced design teams and the architect is implemented at the initial stages of building design,” — Andriy Bidakov
PRAGMATIKA.MEDIA: How do you synchronize the work of engineers and architects, reducing errors and speeding up construction?
Andriy Bidakov: Today, design engineers, network engineers and architects work very closely, because they open a single model in which they can work in parallel, although they are physically located at great distances. Modern design tools allow us to significantly accelerate the processes of developing building frames and reduce errors through proper administration and proper interaction of teams of engineers and architects during project development. On the one hand, the set of software complexes accelerates design and construction, but on the other hand, highly qualified operators (engineers, architects) of these volumetric building modeling programs are required in order for the expected "magic" of fast and error-free construction to take place as the ultimate goal of every developer. Such "design magic" is difficult to achieve due to a number of problems, and the work style sometimes has the slogan "by suffering comes wisdom" or "on a rake, like on a trampoline". Among the main obstacles to the correct synchronization of architects and designers are:
- basic knowledge: very often they are minimized and based on what is in the drop-down windows or menus of modeling programs. The level of university training has degraded rapidly. The wrong people began to teach, about the wrong things and in the wrong way. Perhaps this is why the Kharkiv School of Architecture (Kharkiv School of Architecture, the first private higher education institution in Ukraine that offers bachelor's and master's programs in architecture and urbanism. — Ed. note) emerged as an alternative for those looking for quality architectural education;
- data poisoning: developed architectural projects are often based on borrowed examples and solutions without taking into account the engineering conditions and technologies under which they were made. Objects built in the absence of snow load, icing, etc. cannot be repeated in domestic practice, taking into account the culture of construction work and building operation;
- shortsightedness of decisions: Architectural and engineering solutions are often based on simple algorithms and conclusions regarding the ability to produce frame elements and assemble them with minimal errors; the list of mechanisms required for construction is expanding and implementation times are lengthening, which often leads to a cosmic cost of the construction object, which arises already during its construction.
An example of a building with a bold cantilever: the WoZoCo residential complex in Amsterdam, designed by the architectural firm MVRDV. Photo source: MVRDV
The presence of certain problems is not an obstacle if the correct cooperation of experienced design teams with the architect is implemented at the initial stages of building design, namely at the stage of developing a draft design. The success of such communication strongly depends on the profiling of the designer who accompanies the architect, that is, when developing a building made of wood, a designer of wooden structures should be involved, and not a reinforced concrete worker, who seems not to mind trying to design something out of wood. The profile of the specialist ensures not only the variability of engineering solutions, but also their laconicism, for example, nodal connections, which are also very often part of the interior, as is the case in buildings made of glass or wood. European architectural bureaus, as a rule, indicate in their photos the names of design companies, networkers, construction companies with which the project was implemented. This is not only a rule of business ethics, but also indicates that it is precisely the combination of efforts of such teams that made the implementation of a particular object possible. Or sometimes you can even hear from foreign colleagues that the courage and originality of a project depends on the level of designers who are in cooperation and whose worldview is not limited to knowledge of regulatory documents; these may be those who develop them and have scientific and research competencies to implement something innovative. Among such powerful world-class engineering companies is, for example, Arup, whose employees can be met both at working meetings of groups of scientists developing Eurocodes (European standards for the design of building structures), and at scientific and technical conferences at the sites of various universities. Sometimes, looking at photos of some buildings, you can guess the handwriting of design bureaus.
During related work, the designer's arguments to the questions posed by the architect are often met with a reaction in the form of counter-questions: "What, is that possible?", "Does that really happen?", which eliminates a number of errors and unnecessary work on creating variations of a possible solution at the initial stage. Moreover, the argumentation of certain architectural and engineering solutions is agreed or rejected taking into account the technological conditions of the construction site, the speed of construction of the structure or the established deadlines for the construction of the building. Even the approval of some points regarding the structures is based on the principle of what it will look like in the interior and what other options for the node or truss can be accepted as an alternative. You can increasingly hear about 5D design, which, in addition to a three-dimensional model of the building, allows you to obtain data on the implementation period and cost, which is extremely important for the investor. The cultivation of engineering intuition in architects as a latent competence is carried out in leading world universities by increasing the hours of technical subjects and by combining student architects and builders into mixed teams during the course assignment and diploma design, as is the case at the Technical University of Munich, and the experience of working with students in this format is pleasantly impressive. At the Swiss Higher Technical School of Zurich, the level of technical training of architects is generally sky-high, and it seems that it is even higher than the level of graduates of Ukrainian universities in the construction field.
The construction industry today, in order to accelerate construction and reduce errors, has come to the prefab format (parts of buildings, facade elements, etc.) as an answer to this request in modern construction through a new type or a new level of engineering and design solutions. Prefab as a new reality is constantly evolving and is a general solution to a system of equations with a large set of variables and the possibility of prioritizing each of them depending on the conditions and requirements of a constantly changing market.
In general, today the cooperation between architects and designers shows a steady trend, when it is not important what to design, but with whom.
PM: You specialize in environmentally friendly wooden structures. What specific modern engineering solutions did Vlasne Misto use to reduce construction and operating costs while meeting the architect's vision?
AB .: When working on the frames of buildings in Vlasne Misto, complex engineering solutions were made that concerned not only the strength of the frame elements and their assemblies; no less important aspects were also taken into account: reliability, durability and safety of the designed structures. As a rule, the latter criteria on the Ukrainian market are often neglected or even uninteresting and do not affect the added value of the building. The modernity of the engineering solutions made in Vlasne Misto was primarily based on the principles of optimizing the material consumption of building structures through the compilation of effective static schemes and on accurately defined scenarios of the spatial system of building elements as a primary and important step. Some solutions were approved after the results of static laboratory tests of structures and assemblies were obtained, which made it possible to understand exactly how the structure works and collapses, rather than guessing how a new engineering solution works. Of course, this is a luxury in a certain sense, but it meets the current requirements of European countries, when the introduction of new developments cannot be implemented without performing verification laboratory and analytical studies of building structures or their components.
Vlasne Misto Market Square Project: Buildings will be constructed from materials with a low carbon footprint. Image courtesy of Vlasne Misto
The results of testing new ideas made it possible to create the latest innovative structural solutions, such as wooden PRX panels (new lightweight floor slabs) or lightweight plywood panels with rigid X-shaped bent plywood ribs. Such panels not only have low material consumption and low weight, but also allow you to quickly cover spans of 20–24 meters. The possibility of reusing structures, environmental friendliness and ease of disposal are no less important factors for the recognition of this patented development by foreign colleagues and confirm its modernity and relevance.
"Planting a building on the terrain and minimizing expensive earthworks is always a significant saving of resources and time, provided that the designer and architect work properly," — Andriy Bidakov
The innovativeness of engineering solutions is based not only on the technological feasibility of production, but also aims to:
- simplify construction costs by minimizing installation times;
- reduce the number and power of mechanisms for erecting the frame;
- create a final surface level that will become part of the interior and eliminate finishing work and the time and money spent on it (high level of production readiness);
- be simple to install and operate, so that it is possible to involve non-specialized specialists for construction or replacement during reconstruction.
Minimizing operating costs is of particular value for modern building structures and nodal connections. Very often, operating costs determine the fate of a new design solution or the optimal service life or warranty. In Vlasne Misto, the architects clearly noted the use of natural building materials as a guarantee of building quality with predictable properties and understandable changes over time. For example, wooden structures can last up to 700 years, while reinforced concrete is a relatively "young" material, no more than 200 years old, and its changes over time are still unknown.
A separate strategy for minimizing costs was to find the same groups of structural elements for a series of buildings (15 types of private houses, 10 types of townhouses), which made it possible to have not only the same dimensions, for example, monolithic columns, but also to reduce them to close reinforcement or reinforcement with reinforcing bars of the same diameter. Minimizing the typologies of formwork and remnants of reinforcement significantly reduced the budget and errors due to the uniformity of the details of the building frame, while not violating architectural planning decisions. Sometimes decisions were made to use prefab reinforced concrete (if the static scheme of the building allowed), for example, foundation blocks, which completely eliminated formwork, reinforcement, waiting for good weather and other costs typical of working with monolithic reinforced concrete.
A special place was occupied by energy efficiency solutions through the elimination of cold bridges by creating special nodes with triple functionality and gaps. By the way, many German companies offer various versions of such solutions and warn that honest, highly qualified specialists are needed for their implementation. The solutions we have developed are simpler and therefore universal.
The combination of wood, metal and reinforced concrete in the frames of the buildings also required taking into account their mechanical properties, namely varying degrees of deformation, fragility and, accordingly, substantiation of feasibility during the optimization of buildings, based on the architectural concept and the architect's vision. Landing a building on the terrain and minimizing expensive earthworks is always a significant saving of resources and time, provided that the designer and architect work correctly, especially in large-scale buildings such as a school or a residential area, where the differences on the site reach 3–7 meters.
Lightweight, durable, eco-friendly: new generation building materials allow architects designing for Vlasne Misto to unleash their imagination. Photo courtesy of Vlasne Misto
Towards a tectonic shift in Ukrainian development
Through the prism of expert voices, we tried to highlight the mechanisms that transform architectural concepts into functional structures: Yaroslav Korniachenko, as a strategist of Vlasne Misto, emphasized the balance between creative potential and expert control, where mistakes serve as a tool for improvement; Maryan Kardash, a specialist in competition platforms, emphasized the role of transparency in avoiding cyclical failures, where victories remain theoretical; David Borodiy, a representative of the younger generation, pointed to educational deficits, when sketches rarely turn into detailed documentation, and practical experience becomes the key to integrating norms and logistics; experienced architects Anatoly Nemtsov and Mykhailo Karnaukhov gave their assessment of the education system and set priorities for becoming specialists; Andriy Bidakov, Doctor of Technical Sciences and an engineer with a focus on wooden structures, highlighted how early cooperation between architects and designers minimizes risks by optimizing materials and components for economic sustainability.
The formula for an effective competition follows from these insights: start with a comprehensive technical task that covers the full cycle, from contextual analysis to operational scenarios; form an authoritative jury for trust and evaluation; extend the deadlines for in-depth development; ensure the redemption and implementation of winning proposals, integrate engineers at the concept stage, converting potential contradictions into rational innovations.
The introduction of such competitions at a systemic level could transform Ukrainian architecture like a silent shift of tectonic plates: stimulating the evolution from isolated visualizations to ecosystems where aesthetics intertwine with energy efficiency, and the vision of new generations flows into experienced teams. Ultimately, this will contribute to the fact that at such global forums as MIPIM, Ukraine will be positioned not as a periphery, but as a laboratory where ideas evolve into spaces adapted to human needs and challenges.
