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    Trauma of Ukraine war “was crucial for me as an architect” says Tallinn Architecture Biennale curator Anhelina Starkova

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    Anhelina L Starkova explains how her experience of living through the Ukraine war has shaped her approach to curating the 2024 Tallinn Architecture Biennale in this interview.

    Starkova, who was chief curator of this year’s biennale, is from Kharkiv in north-east Ukraine – a city that has suffered heavy bombardment since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022, coming close to being captured early on in the conflict.
    According to the curator, she experienced something close to an epiphany not long after the war began, while taking refuge in the bunker in her house as bombs fell around it
    Anhelina L Starkova is chief curator of this year’s Tallinn Architecture Biennale. Photo by Helen Shets”I remember that planes were flying around, and the building was shaking, and it was really the moment when you understand that it’s probably your last minutes,” she recalled.
    “I was standing with this wall, and I was thinking that this wall was a continuation of my body – this is me,” she continued.

    “It was, for an architect, [a] very interesting feeling. Because I finished university, I had my 10 years in practice, and I still was not really immersed in architecture.”
    “You always think it intellectually, but when I was in this bunker I started [to] think, ‘oh my god, this is the only one thing that can really save me – this wall is the only one thing that I need’. It was a very existential experience.”
    Titled “Resources for a Future”, the exhibition explores innovative ways of using materials in architectureLater, while spending some time in Bucharest, visiting a shopping mall made her reconsider the value of architecture.
    “There’s all this commercial architecture, and I feel such a disgust,” she told Dezeen. “Like it’s a cartoon, it’s not real. I felt it not with my brain but with all my body: we live in a world of complete illusion.”
    In other words, Starkova said, the traumatic experience of the war has given her a new sense of clarity about what really matters in architecture.
    “When the war started in the Ukraine, that was crucial for me as an architect,” she explained. “I didn’t expect that it would influence me so much personally.”
    “Everything kind of started to be very clear: many, many things that we add to architecture – these addictive visions – are extra things, and they are not making buildings in a total way.”
    “If I would like to continue [in architecture] then I would need to isolate myself from all this gallery of thinking, which I can’t stand anymore.”

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    Instead, Starkova, who as well as running her own studio lectures at the University of Applied Sciences of the Grisons and Kharkiv School of Architecture, has become more interested in the bare essentials of architecture.
    “Really great architecture, it’s about durability factors, the functionality, but also giving people a kind of stability and safety,” she said. “In the end, it’s mostly about our immersion.”
    Starkova has applied this back-to-basics philosophy to her curation of the seventh Tallinn Architecture Biennale, which opened in the Estonian capital last week.
    Pihlmann Architects presented a proposition for changing the function of a building by changing parts of its floorplates into rampsAt the centre of this year’s biennale is an exhibition exploring the theme of Resources for a Future, hosted by the Estonian Centre for Architecture.
    Featuring 14 exhibits from studios including Gus Wüstemann Architects, KAMP Arhitektid, Déchelette Architecture and Pihlmann Architects, it examines different approaches to using local resources for creating new buildings and prolonging the life of existing ones.
    “I had conversations with each architect that you have to look at the basics and the fundamental, real feel of what you are doing,” Starkova said.
    “And even asked each architect, when you’re talking about resources, what really fosters you to do architecture, what supports you? And each installation showed the answers.”
    For instance, Denmark-based Pihlmann Architects created a large model of a stripped-back building shell where part of each floor had been cut out and sloped downwards to form a ramp up from the floor below.
    “It was really about this idea of purification,” said Starkova. “You see an old building and you just do not add anything. You see the nature of the building and you’re trying to heal it or to reformulate its elements.”
    Déchelette Architecture’s exhibit showcased rammed-earth pillars using material dug locally to TallinnThat, she said, is a lesson she learned while working on repairs to damaged buildings in Kharkiv during the war.
    “You’re trying to compose it again, to heal it, and then it gets another conceptual environment – another feeling, and it’s already architecture.”
    “Architecture is the constant process of thinking of your relation to materials, different elements, and assemblage of them in a holistic way.”
    At the centre of the exhibition are a series of pillars erected by rammed-earth specialist Emmanuelle Déchelette of Paris studio Déchelette Architecture, with the material dug locally to Tallinn.
    “It’s about doing a lot with nothing, that complete purification,” said Starkova. “To avoid this ideological or even social architecture.”

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    The participating architects were given a deliberately open brief, because Starkova felt the exhibition was “not about dogmas”. As a result, the exhibits are highly varied in form and approach.
    They range from a huge chunk of a restored traditional Estonian log house by Apex Arhitektuuribüroo (pictured top) to an abstract proposal for a public space created only by digging by Romanian architect Laura Cristea and Swiss architect Raphael Zuber.
    In another, Estonian studio KAMP Arhitektid presented research on the surprising breadth of potential building materials that can be found on one specific 15 square-kilometre piece of land in the country.
    “Each project was a surprise because I didn’t know them personally before the exhibition, none of them,” said Starkova.
    A research project by KAMP Arhitektid demonstrated potential building materials found on a single plot of landThat effect was only heightened by the fact that Starkova managed the whole project remotely, only arriving in Tallinn a few days before the exhibition opened.
    She began with a list of more than 500 architects whose work she admires, eventually selecting those who she felt “were the most radical in their thinking”.
    The Ukraine war is referenced in one installation, produced by Elina Liiva and Helena Manna in collaboration with PAKK, composed of a series of images of apartment living rooms printed on translucent fabric and placed in a line, with chunk of concrete lying nearby that corresponds with a hole cut into the scene.
    But beyond that, Starkova deliberately avoided making the conflict a direct focus of the exhibition, believing that it may detract from a sense of immediacy.
    “During the war, it’s not a place for architecture – mostly a place for thinking,” she said.
    “And yes, architects are trying to think, with the support of international world architecture, what could be done [after the war]. But I just wanted to stay honest and not be futuristic.”
    The only exhibit to directly reference the Ukraine war looked at approaches to changing buildings damaged in the conflictOverall, Starkova hopes the exhibition will enable visitors “to learn from architects that architecture is simple to do, and that the formulas are quite simple”.
    As well as leading curation of the exhibition, Starkova was also head judge for the biennale’s customary pavilion commission competition, this time for a bus shelter at Tallinn’s Balti Jaam transit hub.
    Out of more than 80 entries, the winner was No Time to Waste by Belgian architecture duo Brasebin Terrisse.
    The central concept of the pavilion, which is still completing construction, was that the design would be led by whatever construction off-cut materials could be sourced in Tallinn.
    “This was the only project who said that we have an open end – we do not propose [a] form of the installation, we prepare that we come to Tallinn, we test a local situation and after we will develop a form given when doing the work on it,” said Starkova.
    A competition to design a pavilion for the biennale was won by Brasebin Terrisse’s project No Time to Waste (front)”So the rendering of the project itself is just a library of technology that they would like to use, but the form must be made later during the working process,” she added. “It followed the course of the biennale.”
    With the biennale’s opening-week programme complete, Starkova has now returned to Kharkiv, where many buildings lie in ruins in a city that was previously celebrated for its rich and varied architectural heritage.
    “It’s all so difficult,” she reflected. “Kharkiv is changing, it is in constant change.”
    “It’s absolutely impossible to live, because you live in that mode of always existential crisis – on the edge, always. You go to bed, you don’t know you’re going to wake up. You go outside, you don’t know you’re coming back.”
    “Maybe it brings some beauty, because we actually live in this way, all of us – right on the edge.”
    The photography is by Tõnu Tunnel unless stated otherwise.
    Resources For A Future will run until 1 December 2024 at the Museum of Estonian Architecture, Ahtri tn 2, 10151 Tallinn, Estonia. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world. 

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      Ukrainian studio Bogdanova Bureau's Kyiv office damaged in missile attack

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      Kyiv architecture studio Bogdanova Bureau has vowed to make its office “even more beautiful than before” after it was damaged in a Russian missile attack.

      Staff at Bogdanova Bureau arrived at the office on Monday to find the windows blasted into the room and debris and broken glass scattered across the floor.
      Windows were smashed into the room by the blastRussian forces had fired a barrage of missiles into the Ukrainian capital and other cities early that morning, killing 19 people and injuring many more.
      None of Bogdanova Bureau’s employees were harmed, though some of their possessions were destroyed, the studio told Dezeen. By Tuesday, the team had cleaned up the office and returned to work in the studio.
      The team cleaned up the office and returned to work the following day”In some time we will repair all that is broken and make our place even more beautiful than before,” said studio spokesperson Nadia Sheikina. “As designers, we know how to do it.”

      “As well, we are going to rebuild all the destroyed cities and villages, all the schools, homes and ambulatories that were ruined in Ukraine,” she continued. “We already had started working on it.”
      Broken glass and debris was scattered through the office”We were scared on February 24 when the war started, now we are not,” she added. “We know that the mean enemy wants to invade our land and appropriate our culture, but it will never happen.”
      Bogdanova Bureau only recently refurbished its office, completing the project five months before the Russian invasion began.
      The office, pictured before the blast, was refurbished five months before the war began. Photo by Yevhenii AvramenkoThe office is in the heart of Kyiv next to Shevchenko Park, and is surrounded by a university, libraries, museums, and a cultural centre, as well as apartments and office buildings.
      A missile struck the middle of the park close to a children’s playground, with the blast wave destroying windows across the building housing the studio’s office.
      The missile struck a park outside the office building next to a playgroundThe bombardment of central Kyiv was part of a series of attacks launched in retaliation after a key bridge linking Russia to the annexed region of Crimea was heavily damaged by an explosion.
      In April, Bogdanova Bureau spoke to Dezeen for a piece about how Ukrainian design and architecture studios were dealing with the war.

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      At the time, its founder Olga Bogdanova urged international clients to trust Ukrainian studios to deliver despite the turmoil of the conflict.
      “We thank the international society and especially the international design community for all their support and all their attention,” Sheikina said this week.

      Windows of the building were left damaged”But after eight months of the war, we feel that some of you got used to the war. Please do not be! It is understandable, no one can be stressed for such a long time and everyone deserves to experience their own life and focus on some normal things around them,” she continued.
      “We ask you not to get used to war and pay your precise attention to Ukrainian designers, architects, and artists. Please raise your voice and stand with Ukraine. It can make things different!”
      The photography is by Yulia Bevzenko unless otherwise stated.

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      IKEA designs “safe spaces” for children and at-risk refugees fleeing Ukraine

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      Furniture company IKEA has donated its products and design services to create a series of refugee support centres in Eastern Europe, set up by the United Nations to offer aid and sanctuary to the most vulnerable groups displaced by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

      The Swedish furniture brand created interiors with a homely, comforting atmosphere inside several recently established Blue Dot centres, which are run by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR to offer specialist support to children, families and other at-risk refugees.
      Top: numerous Blue Dot shelters have been established in Eastern Europe since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began. Above: IKEA designed the interiors for the sheltersSet alongside major border crossings and transit routes, the centres supply legal aid, mental health support and family reunification services, as well as food and temporary shelter.
      “The work calls for a whole new set of skills because we’re designing spaces that can support people who are experiencing trauma,” said Martyna Pater, who is an interior design specialist for IKEA in Kraków, Poland.
      “We’re using walls made of Kallax shelving units and thick curtains to create a quieter and more comfortable environment, to make it feel more like a home, and we’ve also used decorations and picture frames, to make the space feel as cosy and calm as possible.”

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      Out of the 36 Blue Dot centres that UNICEF and UNHCR have established across seven European countries since the start of the Ukraine war, IKEA has helped to design 10 in Romania and five in Poland.
      Three more are currently in development and plans are in the making for IKEA to help set up of additional outposts in Hungary and Slovakia.
      The initiative forms part of a wider €1 million donation that IKEA has pledged to UNICEF and UNHCR’s emergency relief efforts for the Ukraine war, with an additional €30 million going to other selected organisations.
      The furniture company previously joined a number of brands and studios in pausing its operations in Russia, closing its stores and halting imports and exports from the country.
      The shelters are run by UN agencies UNICEF and UNHCRSince the war started in February, more than 6.9 million people have fled Ukraine – 90 per cent of which are women and children, who UNICEF says are especially at risk of abuse, exploitation and trafficking.
      Blue Dot centres, which were first established in 2016, are designed to provide “safe spaces” for these vulnerable groups, containing playrooms for children, private areas for mental health counselling and safe places to sleep.
      “By far, most of the refugees who have fled unimaginable loss and devastation in Ukraine are women, children and older people or people with disabilities, in need of dedicated support,” said Marin Din Kajdomcaj, Poland’s representative at the UN Refugee Agency.
      “Thanks to our great collaboration with IKEA, we can design comforting Blue Dot spaces where refugees at greater risk can find a moment to rest, feel safe and protected again, access reliable information, counselling and psychological support, all in an effort to have them start healing and recovering from traumatising events.”
      Shelters designed to be convenient, child-friendly and site-specific
      For IKEA’s design teams, this involved creating interiors that are easy to navigate and tailored to both adults and children alike.
      “We’re designing spaces for children that are cosy and playful, but we use low furniture so their parents can see them when they are speaking to advisors,” Pater explained.
      “With thousands of people coming to the hubs, you also have to think about crowd control and creating good signage that helps people move through the space so they can find the right support they need.”
      Since Blue Dot shelters are temporary, they occupy a wide range of settings from tents to repurposed arenas.
      As a result, IKEA’s designers developed tailored interiors schemes that respond to specific sites and scales, rather than coming up with a universal template.
      Martyna Pater is an interior design specialist for IKEA Poland”It’s all about a fast response and providing a comfortable safe space,” said Laurentiu Stefan Serban, a visual merchandiser and shop designer for IKEA in Bucharest, Romania. “The aim is to create an environment where people can recover and find their strengths again.”
      A number of architects have applied their expertise to creating temporary shelters for those displaced by the Ukraine war.
      Kyiv practice Balbek Bureau developed a concept for a modular refugee village, which was picked up by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and is now set to be constructed in the country’s Ternopil region.
      Pritzker Prize-winning architect Shigeru Ban focused instead on creating more privacy in existing shelters by making use of his modular Paper Partition System, which can be constructed from cardboard tubes and strips of fabric in around five minutes.
      The images are courtesy of IKEA.

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