Projects




2023
DOORS TO UKRAINE
Low-Carbon Material Reuse from Switzerland to Ukraine


Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine • ETH Zürich + MIT Architecture
Supported by Philip Ursprung,  MISTI, RE-WIN, Metalab,  Urban Curators
Collaboration with Anastasiya Ponomaryova (Curator), Pavlo Zabotin (Designer), Viktor Kopieikin (Designer)


The CO-HATY, Metalab Project initiative operates in Ukraine as a housing and refurbishment effort supporting  internally displaced persons through the adaptation of abandoned buildings since April 2022. It responds to conditions of displacement and material scarcity, where housing adaptations are shaped by urgency, repair, and reuse. The research focuses on low-carbon and cost-effective strategies for transporting, reusing, and upcycling donated materials from demolished buildings in Switzerland to Ukraine.

Calculations of embodied carbon and cost comparisons show that reusing and transporting existing doors results in lower emissions and reduced costs than producing new ones locally. Within this system, donated doors are the primary architectural element, examined for how they can be reconfigured rather than discarded. Through a series of interventions, doors are adapted into functional components, incorporating storage elements such as shelves and compartments to support constrained collective living conditions.






The work is grounded in a broader inquiry into reuse as an architectural and social practice. The door is treated both as infrastructure and as a symbolic threshold of domestic life, carrying associations of shelter and security. The process connects international collaborators including RE-WIN in Switzerland and partners in Warsaw such as BRDA, TLO, and NIAiU, who contribute to the collection, redesign, and redistribution of salvaged materials into new housing conditions in Ukraine.
fig.1 Exhibition  poster






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