This is the second time the Steel Freedom competition has been held during a full-scale war. This year there was only one nomination, so the total number of submitted projects was less than last year (87 versus 123), but the competition for prizes was higher. This year's competitive task is a rehabilitation center for military personnel and war veterans in Zhytomyr. Students from 15 Ukrainian universities submitted their projects.
"Unlike previous years, this year there was only one competitive task. So we can say that the number of works on one topic was high enough, and therefore the competition was higher. So this year, I especially want to celebrate the participants who took prize places, because it is one thing when it is three prize places among ten, and quite another when this trio is chosen from several dozen. This year, the competition was tougher, and the requirements were higher precisely because of the number of submitted works," says expert of the jury of this year's Steel Freedom Dmytro Vasiliev, CEO and chief architect Archimatika.
Dmytro Vasiliev, CEO and chief architect of archimatika
10 teams made it to the finals, they defended their projects in front of authoritative members of the jury in person.
The final was held under cover, just like last year, when a full-scale invasion did not prevent the architectural competition
Since 2014, the Metinvest group of companies has been the constant general partner of Steel Freedom, and this year the event was also supported by the Zhytomyr City Council. Official partners of Steel Freedom this year are Metipol, Tekla Structures, Rauta, SVL, SketchUp, LIRA-SAPR (LIRALAND Group), inLab School, BIM Solutions Ukraine, GRAPHISOFT Center Ukraine.
The event began with an introductory speech by the organizers: Anna Gontarenko, so-called at. executive director of the Ukrainian Center of Steel Construction. Anna noted the already traditional status of the Steel Freedom competition — an event that has been held steadily for the tenth time and is growing every time. So, for example, this year a team of Zaporizhia Polytechnic students joined the competition for the first time.
Anna Gontarenko was followed by the customers of the competition project - Zhytomyr Mayor Serhiy Sukhomlyn and Chief Architect of Zhytomyr Olga Bronshtein.
"Rehabilitation centers are institutions that, unfortunately, Ukraine will need very much in the coming years, even tens of years," - Serhiy Sukhomlyn
Zhytomyr Mayor Serhiy Sukhomlyn and Chief Architect of Zhytomyr Olga Bronshtein are on stage
This year, the participating teams faced a rather specific and urgent task. A huge number of soldiers are wounded in the struggle for the independence of Ukraine in the war that is still going on. And every such military man, every military woman — they all need proper treatment and rehabilitation. Serhiy Sukhomlyn claims that such medical and rehabilitation institutions need renovation, a fresh and modern look.
This is how Oleksiy Obraztsov, architect and founder of the ArchObraz office, comments on this year's Steel Freedom and the competition project:
- This is the 10th jubilee contest, and it took place primarily thanks to our military, who defend the country. The actual topic of the competition is still at the initial stage of finding high-quality project solutions for this type of objects. Thus, the educational goal of the competition was combined with an important experiment. The young architects proposed how exactly, operating with the tools of architecture, it is possible to more effectively help military personnel in need of treatment and rehabilitation.
The results of the competition, in my opinion, are important materials for future joint discussion. This is another small step in the direction of participatory practices to find solutions in which society is interested. It is good that it is the youth who present their vision without being severely limited by regulations and building standards. The Steel Freedom competition is a useful step towards a global dialogue: both between generations of architects and in society in general.
Oleksiy Obraztsov, architect and founder of ArchObraz office
In addition to the already mentioned Oleksiy Obraztsov and Dmytro Vasiliev, this year's competition was judged by the head of the architectural workshop "A. Pashenko" Andriy Pashenko, architect, creative director and co-founder of AIMM Anna Iskierdo, CEO of the architectural company AVR DEVELOPMENT and former deputy minister of community and territorial development Yulian Chaplinskyi, chief architect of projects of the AVG group of companies Oleksandr Maksimov, commercial director of the construction company "Intergal-Bud" Anna Laevska, as well as Vasyl Pasichnyk - the chief project engineer of the research and design department of civil and industrial structures of UkrNDIproektstalkonstruktsiya named after V. M. Szymanovskyi.
The photo shows the judges of the Steel Freedom 2023 final
Steel Freedom 2023 winners
The first place in the single nomination of this year's competition was won by a team of students from the Lviv Polytechnic National University with the R-240 project. The winners are Dmytro Mazur, Sofia Leibych, Sofia Kiyko, Yaroslav Ivaskiv and Oleksandr Mytsyk. The curator of the group was Lviv Polytechnic teacher Leonid Vozniuk.
R-240 is a rehabilitation center project for servicemen and war veterans in Zhytomyr, Ukraine. The authors of the project are Dmytro Mazur, Sofia Leibych, Sofia Kiyko, Yaroslav Ivaskiv and Oleksandr Mytsyk, the curator of the group is Leonid Vozniuk. The image is provided by the authors of the project
- The rehabilitation center is a space that is as much as possible focused on groups of the population with reduced mobility. Unlike other types of buildings, where architects can simply adapt their design to the needs of people with limited mobility, a rehabilitation center requires consideration of inclusiveness in all decision-making from the very beginning of the design. Based on these judgments, during the development of the concept, we set ourselves the main task - to create the most convenient and simple layout for the patients of our center. We tried to predict the main movement paths for routine movement scenarios (for example, ward - dining room, ward - doctor's office - rehabilitation room, etc.) and reduce the length and complexity of these paths as much as possible.
As a result, we used a layout scheme that allowed us to achieve the goals described above, but forced us to prolong the main volume of the building as much as possible, the massiveness of which we reduced by solving the facades and playing with the visual perception of form, - Dmytro Mazur shares the details of the work on the project.
The winners of Steel Freedom 2023 are the team of students of Lviv Polytechnic National University
One of the characteristic features of the project is a cantilevered massif of 2-4 floors with panoramic glazing of the end part. During the defense of the projects in the final of the competition, this decision attracted the attention of the judges: the members of the jury were interested in what prompted the students to integrate this particular decision into the submitted project.
On behalf of the team, Yaroslav Ivaskiv explains in more detail about this decision, as well as the glazing and facade decoration of the center:
- The console emerged as a functional response to two factors. At first, we wanted to make a passage through the building in the middle, so that it would be convenient to move around the site, but this decision had a number of disadvantages. Instead, there was nothing to prevent such a passage from the side. The placement of the wards within levels 2–4 required these floors to extend the entire length of the site to accommodate them, while the ground floor rooms did not take up as much space. Thus, planning such a console is justified. In addition, it has an aesthetic function, makes the volume lighter, and the building itself - recognizable.
We wanted to make the facade "light", so even at the stage of discussing the vision of the future project, we roughly imagined what materials we would use. The very theme of the competition prompted thoughts about perforated metal. However, it is not only a matter of aesthetics. We debated the proportions of the windows: horizontal ones were more functional but didn't look too good. The situation was the opposite with vertical windows. In the end, we decided to make wide panoramic windows with an opening section, which we hid behind the perforation. This has several advantages: more light enters the rooms, because the windows are large enough, and at the same time it is possible to achieve greater harmony in the proportions of the facade thanks to the illusion of verticality of the windows.
"We wanted to make the facade "light", so even at the stage of discussing the vision of the future project, we roughly imagined what materials we would use. The very topic of the competition prompted thoughts about perforated metal," — Yaroslav Ivaskiv
Also important is the economic feasibility of construction, subject to the realization of the object. It is worth understanding that we live in a developing country with limited resources. At the same time, certain social obligations of the state are particularly urgent right now, and the rehabilitation of the military should be one of the priorities. Therefore, we tried to maintain a balance — to create a project of a good, but not too expensive, building. For this reason, we rejected solutions that, in our opinion, are impractical, such as, for example, an inner green courtyard in the center of the building, which is already located in the forest.
R-240 is a rehabilitation center project for servicemen and war veterans in Zhytomyr, Ukraine. The authors of the project are Dmytro Mazur, Sofia Leibych, Sofia Kiyko, Yaroslav Ivaskiv and Oleksandr Mytsyk, the curator of the group is Leonid Vozniuk. The image is provided by the authors of the project
At the same time, dealing with a competitive task, which is rather aimed at the presentation of the concept of the solution, the team was not so heavily burdened by technical conventions, DBNs, etc. Instead, students were able to pay more attention to visions, functional analysis of the object, its visual and constructive features, and their relationship. The Lviv Polytechnic team, which developed R-240, conducted detailed and comprehensive research while working on the project, communicated with specialists working in institutions similar to the competition. Sofia Leibych told us more about this side of the work on the project:
- The specificity of the design of rehabilitation centers lies not so much in norms and restrictions as in understanding the issues. In the process of working on the competitive project, our team interacted with employees of other rehabilitation centers. This is how we learned about many non-obvious problems. Even during the development of the smallest details, we tried to imagine ourselves in the shoes of the patients and fully live one day in this center - this allowed us to notice many important aspects. Would it be comfortable for me to drive here in a wheelchair? Will I be able to get to a certain point without hindrance? Would I be able to exercise on my own? Where should I meet my relatives? With each such question, we better understood what the institution we were designing should be. So we modified the planning and adapted it to the needs that the patients might have.
Currently, there are few modern rehabilitation centers in our country, and the need for their number, unfortunately, is growing. They should be built in every city and built now, because many people are already in need of treatment.
It does not matter whether it is a reconstruction or a new construction, the buildings must in any case be fully inclusive, so that it is easier for patients to adapt to new living conditions. Functionality in such objects is always in the first place, it must be thought out to the smallest detail. With design tools, the architect creates scenes of movement and interaction of people in the building, and in the case of working with projects of medical institutions, this is a very responsible task.
"Currently, there are few modern rehabilitation centers in our country, and the need for their number, unfortunately, is growing. They should be built in every city and built now, because many people are already in need of treatment," - Sofia Leibych
To design this center, we got an incredible plot of land in the hydropark. So, in addition to the rehabilitation halls and rooms inside the building, we provided rehabilitation spaces in the fresh air: a sports area with exercise equipment for people with disabilities, a simulator for learning to drive and a tactile path with different surfaces, so that patients get used to walking not only on a flat road, adds Sofia Kiyko.
Interior of a rehabilitation center for military personnel and war veterans in Zhytomyr, Ukraine. The authors of the project are Dmytro Mazur, Sofia Leibych, Sofia Kiyko, Yaroslav Ivaskiv and Oleksandr Mytsyk, the curator of the group is Leonid Vozniuk. The image is provided by the authors of the project
The R-240 project was designed to be compact so that in the process of implementation, the spot on the construction site would harm the natural environment of the object as little as possible.
Also, it was the attention to the natural context of the site that determined the building area: the R-240 project was designed to be compact, so that during the implementation process, the patch of the construction site occupied as little space as possible and, accordingly, did as little harm as possible to the natural environment of the object. Also, the advantages of the natural surroundings of the rehabilitation center were used in the work with the psychological aspects of the competition task:
- Creating a relaxed and psychologically comfortable atmosphere in the rehabilitation center is another important element to promote the rapid recovery of patients. We are convinced that patients should remember the treatment only during prescribed procedures or training, while the rest of the time should resemble normal life. For this purpose, we provided a large number of spaces for recreation inside the center and on the adjacent green area. There, people can spend their time peacefully in company or alone. At the same time, the playgrounds and recreational areas on the site are not only for patients. Such deliberate openness in planning aims to prevent any feeling of isolation, - adds Dmytro Mazur.
"Creating a relaxed and psychologically comfortable atmosphere in the rehabilitation center is an important factor in promoting the rapid recovery of patients," - Dmytro Mazur
Speaking about the general impression of the competition, the winners unanimously note the value of this experience, as well as the importance of face-to-face protection of projects, because this format allows you to personally communicate with the judges, see other contestants and their projects, get a more comprehensive picture of the event and a more multifaceted experience regardless of the results.
Steel Freedom finalists defended their projects in front of judges at an official event — this year, the defense took place under cover, just like last year. Photo courtesy of Steel Freedom organizers
"Since there is already a big problem in our country - the lack of infrastructure for rehabilitation, it is extremely important for us, as a young generation of architects, to study the topic of inclusivity." - Sofia Leibych
- I am very impressed by the fact that the requirements of the competition task are set both for architecture and for the constructive project, since they are directly related and must coexist harmoniously. I consider the opportunity for students of different specialties of the same field to jointly develop one project in a team to be really expedient. I will definitely need this experience in the future. We were very pleased to work on such a socially important project and to receive feedback from experienced architects and designers, Oleksandr Mytsyk also shares his impressions.
Steel Freedom 2023 winners. Photo courtesy of Steel Freedom organizers
As a final word in our conversation, the curator of the group, Leonid Vozniuk, expressed his gratitude to the organizers of the Steel Freedom competition for the excellent annual organization of the event and the support of talented youth.
- The competition helps in the formation of a modern designer, brings theory in student works closer to practice with the implementation of conceived ideas. This is preceded by the synergy of the work of architects and designers working on the project. Steel Freedom is perhaps the only student competition in Ukraine, in which, in addition to high-quality and interesting architecture, it is also necessary to develop real constructive solutions for the implementation of the project. This combination of requirements is very impressive to the teachers of the architectural design and engineering department of Lviv Polytechnic University, whose staff includes both architects and designers. For 5 years now, we have been working with students with great pleasure and helping them create competitive projects that are annually finalists, receive nominations and prizes, and this year won! Leonid shares.
