HOPE HOME – НАДІЯ

Project outline

HOPE HOME • НАДІЯ a pilot project for radically different construction in Ukraine, as of: 21|11|23
the connection to a broad network that spans knowledge, disciplines and geographies
promote the use of renewable building materials.

Project outline HOPE HOME • НАДІЯ

Artists and scientists at the exhibition RECOMMENDED FOR IMITATION! have examined the ecological building materials hemp, sheep’s wool, mushroom mycelium, clay and bark and possible connections between each other; Intensive workshops gave rise to a research and implementation context, a hunger to master the complexity of circular construction and economics with these very materials. The sustainable development of Ukraine is urgent; the conventional construction industry is known to cause an immense share of 40% of CO₂ emissions, meaning it is responsible for 40% of the climate disaster. Without a transformation of this sector through a circular economy and renewable, biodegradable building materials, a sustainable future will not be possible.

The project pursues the three goals:

To demonstrate that the reconstruction in Ukraine not only meets existing (e.g. EU) standards in terms of materials and energy, but goes beyond them and can thus help formulate future, not yet established standards for sustainable construction worldwide. The wheel does not have to be reinvented; we can rely on international research and experiences such as the network “swissnetworkwithukraine.org” or the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023, which itself is based on long artistic experience. In the professional organizations of architects from Ukraine and Germany there are encouraging movements towards renewable building materials and towards the realization that, in addition to gray energy (material values), golden energy (immaterial, cultural, biographical values) is also tied up in existing buildings.
To show that reconstruction is not just a purely technical, engineering and planning-controlled process, but a dimension of »Do It Yourself! DIY” can, yes, must include. HOPE HOME • НАДІЯ is about building on traditional building practices with reed, clay, hemp, straw, wood, about developing, combining, inventing and working together; about cooperation between specialist and empirical knowledge, sciences, crafts, art and design; about strengthening civil society.
In this experimental, effective cooperation on site, which operates primarily with local materials, there is an opportunity for future regional value chains and for people to find themselves again, back home after their traumatic experiences. Because in the sense of innovation and transformation research, not only materials and engineering knowledge are required, but also clinical psychology (traumatology) and the social sciences in addition to art and design.

The Mykolaiv Oblast is to become a pilot region and a center, a practical hub for international research on building with renewable, hybrid and recycled materials. HOPE HOME • НАДІЯ has the support of the military administration and local authorities of the Mykolaiv district and that of the National Union of Architects of Ukraine and the Department of Architecture at Kyiv University.

This is where the collaborations with construction companies and manufacturers will take place; this is where we will find out what is most urgently needed. A school? A shelter house, the repair of an individual home, a meeting place, a village? Also, how to embed previously spared, damaged, endangered and destroyed building stock as the ideal, mental and emotional material of a post-traumatic recovery program? What is needed in terms of municipal regulations, local and international networks, industrial suppliers, etc., so that construction can be as close to culture and life as possible, but also efficient and recommended for imitation, i.e. scalable?

We approach these complex issues in dozens of joint workshops. For this purpose, we are looking for cooperation in terms of content and finance.

We are united by the conviction that the urgently needed, fundamental ecological transformation, which is currently being relegated to the margins of perception socially and politically, cannot do without the sensory insights and creative skills of art, design and architecture. We have learned in practice that art, science and the everyday and practical knowledge of citizens, politics and administration must open up to one another in order to be able to pursue new CO₂-free paths. Together with scientific materials research, building material alternatives are being created that require public funding. Also in view of the fact that the international consortia of the construction industries are ready to begin reconstruction in Ukraine – highly subsidized – using the old CO₂-intensive building materials. We stand up to that. This construction sector is becoming too threatening for all living beings on this planet. We want one
sustainable statement, setting an exclamation mark for a different construction of Ukraine.

At HOPE HOME • НАДІЯ we observe that it is largely and predominantly artists, architects, biologists, materials researchers and farmers who use these building materials, combined with new technologies, in research, teaching, art and bring into processing. This pilot project builds on ancient cultural techniques of building and construction that have been developed and preserved by women over centuries.

DavidAE >< Goliath

HOPE HOME – НАДІЯ

Project outline