For the third year in a row, the platform brings together hundreds of participants from across the country to reflect on the challenges facing Ukrainian cities today and to model a vision for sustainable urban transformations in the future. Lviv Urban Forum 2025 was attended by 85 speakers from nine countries and over 1500 architects, urban planners, urbanists, and students — the largest number of participants in the event's history.
The slogan of this year's forum was "Building Continuity" - this idea defined its main thematic line. By uniting the discourse around the topic of urban continuity, which is especially sensitive in times of war, we talked about how to rebuild Ukrainian cities for entire generations, what role communities play in this process, what should be the culture of memorialization in times of crisis, and why sustainable planning should be flexible and rethink the mistakes of the past. The conclusions from the Lviv Urban Forum also resonate with the key themes of the Ukraine Recovery Conference 2025 and complement the international dialogue on the reconstruction of Ukraine, attracting investment, community involvement, sustainable development, local leadership, and European integration.
Photo: Alyona Malashina
Following the results of the three-day intensive, they formulated 11 key messages from the urban forum.
Restoring Ukraine is the task of an entire generation, not anyone in particular.
This thesis was voiced by a Czech architect Miroslav Schik, author of the concept of “Analog Old-New Architecture.” In his opinion, restoration should become a challenge for an entire generation of Ukrainians, who must not only literally “restore ruins,” but also shape a new quality of the environment and a system of urban decision-making.
Czech architect Miroslav Shik. Photo: Roman Baluk
"It is very important today to form a community of people who are able to take on this complex, long, but extremely important work together. Not only specialists or state administrators should be involved - the team should consist of communities who work with specific challenges on the ground every day: young people who are already learning and testing new approaches, students, activists, architects, researchers, and everyone who is simply not indifferent," states Miroslav Šik.
Reconstruction must begin with dialogue and take into account everyone's experience.
For our cities to truly stand the test of time, they need to be rebuilt together — in dialogue with those who live and will live in them. This year, the Lviv Urban Forum brought together 1500 participants — people with completely different experiences, but with a common goal. Together, we sought an answer to the question of how to rebuild the country in a way that would not just return what was lost, but create a new quality — human-centered, sustainable, and open to the future.
Photo: Roman Baluk
Our main message is that in the face of complex challenges, it is important not to rush: the reconstruction process must be deliberate, sustainable, and sensitive to the context of each community, regardless of region. The stigma surrounding reconstruction must be rethought — it must not be an urgent technical process, but primarily a social, cultural, and value transformation.
Urban planning is not rocket science, but daily interaction with the city
The restoration of Ukraine is impossible without knowledge about the city and without understanding urbanism. However, it is a mistake to think that urban knowledge is a complex academic theory, statistics and diagrams. Urban knowledge is empirical. It is embedded in the everyday experience of interacting with the space of the city.
This was emphasized during the forum Philip Ursprung — Professor of Art History and Architecture at the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH), who has proposed rethinking “reading the city” right now — in his opinion, this should be done not through textbooks, but through proactive city life and urbanism. “Knowledge about the city cannot be reduced to formulas — it must be seen, heard, felt. It is in space and daily routes,” Ursprung is convinced.
The community already has knowledge about the city — it is important to learn to share it
Over the three years of Lviv Urban Forum, we have seen one pattern: a growing desire among participants to exchange experiences and build new connections. So we once again offered familiar and beloved formats - urban outings, workshops, as well as a special matchmaking session, where participants exchanged contacts and looked for opportunities for cooperation.
Photo: Roman Baluk
It is in such informal experiences that something is born that no panel discussion will provide: trust, openness, and willingness to work together. We call on communities to actively support urban networking - this is the key to building horizontal connections between communities, students, professionals, and initiatives from different regions.
Urban planning should be flexible, not static
One of the key speakers of Lviv Urban Forum 2025 was Johannes Towatt — architect and author of the urban planning concept for the Seestadt Aspern district in Vienna, one of the most ambitious examples of sustainable development in Europe. In his opinion, the master plan is not a static scheme, but a flexible tool that must adapt to challenges that cannot be predicted in advance.
“Architecture should be part of a social process, not an isolated discipline,” Towatt states. “Just like a street: it exists not only for transit, but also for interaction. Urban projects must go beyond a single function to remain viable even in the face of climate, social, or political changes.” Building continuity, according to the architect, means working not for short-term effect, but creating urban structures that will remain relevant for decades.
The suburbs should develop in tandem with the city.
Cities do not exist in a vacuum - they interact with surrounding communities every day. But how to ensure sustainable development of cities without ignoring the connection with the suburbs? The problem is that Ukrainian legislation still does not have the concept of functional urban areas, and the issue of the functioning of agglomerations is not regulated. Because of this, it is difficult for cities to implement European integrated approaches to spatial planning and regional development. The communities of the Lviv agglomeration are already working on a model of such cooperation - it can be applied in other regions in the future. The main thing now is to work on trust between participants, find a common vision and implement the first changes in the areas of ecology and infrastructure.
Sustainable approach is not just a trend, it should be the basis of all spaces
One of the biggest challenges today is to combine political will and financial support to make the green transition in urban environments accessible to all. This is the problem that the New European Bauhaus policy seeks to address. This approach requires a deeper understanding of the processes of shaping urban space – regardless of the scale or roles of the participants.
Photo: Bohdan Yemets
Architect Anna the Anointed in her lecture, she emphasized that new spaces in the city must be designed comprehensively, critically considering the tools we work with. The forum speaker also spoke about the need for changes towards low-carbon construction and sensitivity to context. Rosa GanghausenIn Ukrainian realities, this is especially relevant: the best sustainable approaches should be implemented now — both in temporary and long-term projects.
The lack of restorers and a sustainable approach is one of the biggest challenges of reconstruction
Another important topic of Lviv Urban Forum 2025 was working with cultural heritage in wartime conditions — in the last three years alone, 1179 monuments have been damaged in Ukraine. Viktor Dvornikov, a member of the working group on rapid response to heritage damage in Kharkiv, was one of the first to draw attention to the problem of losing authentic elements of monuments. According to him, to avoid this, cultural heritage specialists should be involved and efforts should be made to sort valuable elements from construction debris.
Photo: Bohdan Yemets
An even greater challenge is the lack of specialists capable of working with the restoration of destroyed heritage: Vasyl Kosiv, rector of the Lviv National Academy of Arts, emphasized that programs for training artisan restorers should play a key role in the sustainable reconstruction of the country.
Memorialization must be sensitive — and created together with the families of the deceased
War changes not only spaces, but also our attitude to memory. In Ukraine, there is currently a very tangible demand for understanding losses through urban memorials that will be sensitive and reflective of trauma: this task faces communities, architects, and cities in general. Forum speaker, architect Marcin Urbanek, emphasized: "The space of memory should not be an emotional blow. On the contrary, we need quiet, thoughtful architecture that leaves room for personal experience." It is important to involve the families of the deceased and victims of war in the memorialization process - as those who help shape the narrative. Architectural competitions can be an effective tool in this experience: they allow us to go beyond formal solutions and find a truly sensitive response.
Collaboration with local experts is the basis of high-quality social architecture
At one of the blocks of the Lviv Urban Forum 2025, dedicated to the transformation of Lviv, social projects developed by local architectural teams were presented. abmk, Soluk Architects, AVR Development, Sulyk Architects, Replus Bureau, Sheremeta Architect Group, Delta Architects, Institute of Spatial Development. The projects presented are examples of social architecture created in close dialogue between local authorities and local architects. This emphasizes that such objects do not arise in isolation from the environment - they are born where there is mutual trust, involvement and a shared vision.
Photo: Bohdan Yemets
Therefore, it is important to foster a culture of collaboration with the local professional community — those who know the context well, who truly care about the city they work in. It is this kind of interaction that creates high-quality social spaces that work for the community — with sensitivity to the context and responding to the real needs of citizens.
Recovery planning is not an end point, but a beginning.
Recovery planning is not necessary to form a final vision of reconstruction. The purpose of planning is to launch the process: mobilize resources, involve stakeholders, establish coordination between all links. Recovery should take into account the social and political context, be based on leadership, community participation, and inter-level coherence. But in reality, many communities do not have sufficient potential to create comprehensive plans that could become a bridge between crisis response and long-term development - this problem was discussed at a panel on recovery programs with the participation of representatives of the parliament, the Ministry of Regional Development, and communities from different regions. It is communities that should pilot practical and inclusive models that can be scaled up - but with the support of the state and international partners.
Photo: Roman Baluk
This is an incomplete list of theses that were presented during the three-day large-scale lecture. Summing up the Lviv Urban Forum 2025, we emphasize those meanings and messages that, in our opinion, are most relevant to today's challenges and that can become a guideline for communities and municipalities right now. These are the conclusions that will help form communities that together seek new keys to a better future for Ukrainian cities — sensitive, contemporary, and human-centered.
See also:
Get ready for great progress. Where to start rebuilding Ukraine