Future School for Ukraine: Open Architectural Design Competition

UPDATE: Submission deadline extended to May 31st 10 AM (GMT+2)

Education cannot be put on hold without risking the future of generations.

The "Future School for Ukraine" project aims to support Ukrainian people facing the daunting task of rebuilding schools and reviving the education sector, heavily impacted by war.

It will provide a ready-to-implement and free-to-use adaptive technical design for building new schools across the country. The availability of such a solution will save time and financial resources and will facilitate fundraising for the recovery of Ukraine’s school system.

The Lithuanian Fund for the Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid allocated €500,000 for the implementation of the project.

More than 3,000 school buildings in Ukraine are currently severely damaged or destroyed as a result of ongoing military aggression. More than a third of Ukrainian pupils only have access to distance learning. A large number of pupils do not attend school because their safety is not guaranteed: there are no shelters. Internal migration to safer parts of the country has put the education infrastructure in less war-affected regions under severe strain, some schools operate three shifts a day. Pupils and teachers are facing the problems of emotional and psychological well-being.

The following key priorities are identified in the light of these and other challenges related to education in Ukraine:

• Access to education;
• Pupil and teacher safety;
• Educational gaps due to inadequate education process;
• Teacher burnout and pupils’ psychological well-being.

In terms of the needs of educational infrastructure which exist today and will remain in place for the near future, Ukraine will require the multi-purpose education centres in regional centres covering an area of up to 50 kilometres;

The examination of a multitude of arguments at the competition development phase has led to a decision to develop the concept of a Multifunctional Education Centre.

Multifunctional Education Centre is to accommodate around 550 children of all ages, from primary school to lyceum, with facilities for temporary accommodation for pupils and teachers, spaces for community activities and psychological rehabilitation, and a dual-use shelter.

Adaptive Reuse Architectural Design means an architectural work, a set of architectural solutions for a building design featuring maximum solutions for the site, the interior and the exterior of the building, which can be applied independently of the specific target site or location, and could be re-used, in adapted form, for multiple different locations, each time by individually integrating and adapting it to the local context.

This is an adaptive reuse architectural design competition, therefore a specific site is not provided at the competition stage. In order to identify the volumetric and spatial adaptability of the proposals and the outdoor area solutions, three hypothetical sites with different characteristics are provided in the procurement documentation.

More at futureschoolforukraine.eu