In March 2022, barely a month into the war in Ukraine, Nikita Bielokopytov learned that the home of his grandparents had been destroyed. Its roof and walls had been blown up, turning a quaint village house into a pile of pale bricks and burnt cinders. Immediately, Bielokopytov, who is an architect and partner in the Kyiv firm New Office of Vital Architecture, or NOVA, set out to design his grandparents a new home.

The design is simple but contemporary: a compact two-story building with a slightly off-center pitched roof that blends seamlessly into its dark exterior walls. Cognizant that the homes of many other people were also being destroyed, Bielokopytov decided to freely release the plans for his grandparents’ new home, slashing the costs for people who want to rebuild on their land. Those plans are what Bielokopytov considers a modest effort, but they’ve also sparked a broader reconsideration of what it means to be an architect in a place facing an unending barrage of attacks. “It’s difficult to be an architect in a war country,” Bielokopytov says. “You understand that the way you can help is by doing what you do best, and this is to make projects and to share your knowledge.”

For a profession so tied to the creation of the buildings and spaces of day-to-day life, architects in Ukraine have seen the war in their country as a direct attack, and a call to action. From the first days of the war, which started February 24, 2022, buildings and urban spaces were repeat targets for the Russian military, with apartment buildings, train stations, civic centers, and even schools under attack. 

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