Houses in the trees

Severodonetsk , 2017
Type: Urban intervention
Stage: realized
Authors: Roman Sakh Kostiantyn Kuchabsky, Vita Bazan, Anastasiia Parafeniuk

Severodonetsk even after a week of research remained a mystery to us. On the one hand - many independent initiatives and active, enterprising residents, already working with certain locations, pushed for the strengthening of the existing project. On the other hand, tangible competition and unreadiness for the co-operation of several unions did not match our criteria. The team decided to abstract and work with children in the format of a small educational workshop. We understand that qualitative and steady changes in urban space - the task is impossible, unless one ignores this and does not create new conditions for understanding architecture in the childhood. The youth library made a media and simplified the organization of all events. Moreover, its location in a residential building of one of the blocks allowed to fulfill the long-standing desire - to implement the project far from the center in a typical court yard. Updating from the center to the outskirts is a sign of centralization and hierarchy that we are not close to. The workshop-ideation itself was a two-day one and does not claim to be all-encompassing. The tasks we set: to create a successful case where collective discussion, co-creation and consensus among children are the basis for a real change of the situation; the emphasis was on the visualization of ideas and layout, which helped to identify the potential difficulties in implementation. We did not impose restrictions on the choice of filling for space other than those that came from the project budget. Interestingly, among all the options offered by boys and girls, The house on the tree has made everyone - it is symbolic. No tree in the yard could keep the house, like the trees from the models, so it was necessary to transform the idea into houses in the trees. It was nice to see the members of the workshop with parents in the ranks of assistants .. Now in the courtyard next to the library there is space, ready to accept new home staging, which can serve as an adult, to bunch around themselves.