Sustainable Materials and Structures
Sustainable Materials and Structures is an elective course at Kharkiv School of Architecture. The main topic of the course is a full cycle of the building materials production - from the extraction and processing of raw materials to the final product with all intermediate stages.
Sustainable materials
Topic
Location
Lviv, Ukraine
September 2024 - December 2024
Duration
Mykhailo Shevchenko
Team
About the course
The course is on studying building materials from the perspective of carbon footprint. Starting with a general understanding of the carbon footprint phenomenon, students gradually explore all stages of its formation and the factors that influence it. From global factors, such as supply chains and policies, to local factors, such as raw material sources and production methods. Students choose a material to study during the semester, which becomes the basis for their final project. It should be a local material typical of the region's traditional architecture. Students explore local techniques and rethink them for their projects.
Results
The result of the course is a design of a wall construction that incorporates the results of the research. For each project, a 1:1 scale model of a wall fragment is made. All prototypes are designed with the possibility of dismantling and reusing materials in mind. Students choose to the production technologies that enable scaling and industrial production of materials.
Collaborators
We are proud of our partners, thanks to whom our projects become reality.
See other projects
Construction
Pavilion
It is the Ukraine’s very first structure made of compressed earth blocks (CEB)! It is now standing in Lviv as a memorial to Rafał Lemkin, the lawyer who coined the term genocide. Materiality is the central symbol of the pavilion: built from local soil, it evokes a direct link to the city’s history and its tragedies. All materials were sourced within a 20-kilometer radius of Lviv, Ukraine.
Research
Grunt
“Grunt” investigates war-related soil pollution in Ukraine—while rethinking earth as a local material for climate-conscious reconstruction, Grunt bridges two critical concerns arising from post-war zones: the environmental consequences of warfare and the urgent need for reconstruction aligned with climate goals. Hence amplifying the critical question of benchmarks for harm and thus health—soil and human—in our built environments.
Education
Material research:
Earth
Material research: Earth is an elective course at Kharkiv School of Architecture. The main topic of the course is the soil-based materials and their potential for widespread use in construction, as well as the topic of contaminated soils and their potential use as building materials.