“What does “Rebuilding better than it was” mean and what principles should be the basis of post-war reconstruction planning?”, — write: www.epravda.com.ua
At some point, in the context of the reconstruction of Ukraine, everyone started repeating the phrase Build Back Better. It is heard everywhere that we must rebuild better than it was.
What does this mean?
If there is a destroyed school, and we inserted windows – is it better than it was? And if they painted the facade and bought new furniture? At what point does it get better?
We at Big City Lab decided to find an answer to this question and understood that Build Back Better means to rebuild in such a way that the building again begins to meet its main function and the needs of modern people.
What are the principles behind this? I would single out three main things: a comprehensive approach, barrier-freeness and rethinking what is.
These principles should be used when rebuilding any object: a school, a hospital, a square or even an entire city. After all, we will need to restore thousands and thousands of spaces that were destroyed as a result of military operations.
Why cities do not have master plansEvery city should have a master plan, that is, its long-term vision. This is an understanding of how the city is developing, as they want to see it ten years from now. It is a comprehensive approach that allows you to create systemic changes that improve life.
This year, I spent my vacation in Norway and, among other things, I was impressed by how the new districts of Oslo are being developed. The municipality, together with the urban bureau, is developing a master plan, and during this, they actively conduct focus groups and communicate with local residents. Their task is to express people’s lifestyle, economic relations and political arrangements in the urban space.
Unlike Norway, there are almost no cities in Ukraine that have a real development master plan. Why? Because we do not have such a practice.
In the Soviet Union, many processes were centralized. All strategic practices, methodologies and people who knew how to do it were concentrated in Moscow, and approved plans were sent to the regions. At the time of the collapse of the USSR, there was a lack of people in Ukraine who understood how to plan a city not according to instructions.
Now we are completely changing the paradigm of life. We are moving to a market post-industrial economy: we interact with each other differently, we have other forms of ownership. People’s way of life is radically changing, and cities must adapt to it. However, there are almost no people who know how to do it.
There are only a few departments of urban planning in the whole of Ukraine, so there are no experts who could develop master plans. There is no understanding of where Ukrainian cities are moving. Everything develops chaotically, in spurts, and the city authorities usually do not understand very well what kind of urban environment they want to create.
What do we have on the example of Kyiv? If you don’t take into account the center and long-established areas, then everything else is residential complex islands, where a large plot is given to a private developer. A condition is put forward to him: if you develop this territory, solve social problems yourself: build a school, a kindergarten, a hospital.
This is how residential complexes appear, which surround their infrastructure with a fence, because their residents have paid for it. The city turns into an archipelago of housing estates connected by roads and bridges, with nothing between them. We live in settlements that look like obstacle courses, not a comfortable and safe ecosystem.
Not everything Soviet should be destroyedThere is an inheritance, and there is a legacy. Heritage is something valuable. Hotel “Salyut”, “Flowers of Ukraine”, monumental mosaics. This is something that we would like to preserve and pass on to future generations so that they too can look at it.
Inheritance is something that should not be passed on to children. These are typical buildings filled with cities: schools, kindergartens, hospitals, residential buildings. Modernism was everywhere, everywhere leaving large squares, through which you have to walk for half an hour, and roads that are too wide.
The main street in Kryvyi Rih was made as an airstrip in case of war, but we do not use it as a strip even now. The street that runs through the entire city is so wide that it can be turned into a boulevard: sidewalks, tram tracks, bike lanes, and there will still be room for two car lanes in each direction.
It is necessary to change everything that is not functional and leave the historical and artistic.
Let’s take the school infrastructure. What is a qualitatively transformed school? This is when the old Soviet box building, after reconstruction, begins to meet the modern needs of teachers, children and the educational process in general.
We have an ongoing education reform. It changes approaches to learning and relationships between teachers and students, teachers and parents. Children have more practical tasks, and classes are often held in groups or even outside. Meanwhile, the layout of the building has not changed since the 19th century. Even if it was built 50 years ago, these are the same desks, blackboards and classrooms.
However, the format of interaction and the values of society have changed. What was built in the modernist era in a totalitarian state does not correspond to how we want to educate young citizens in a democratic country. There are many things in school planning and design that limit the possibility of modern learning.
For example – lack of common spaces. There is a classroom and a corridor. All. There is no place in the school where you can get together and do something outside of class. However, education at school should also take place outside the classroom.
Of course, quality restoration requires money. We estimated that it costs 600-800 dollars to rebuild the damaged school as it was. per square meter, and to build a modern educational institution from scratch – 1.5-1.8 thousand dollars. for the same area.
The cost of high-quality transformations can be about $1,000. per square meter. Yes, it is 20% more expensive than restoring a basic building of an outdated format, but it is 30% cheaper than a full construction. It also makes it possible to implement modern educational practices and, therefore, to make learning more interesting and effective.
After the construction or restoration of the school in the next ten years, no one will allocate resources for new works in the institution. You will have to work for a long time with the achieved result. Isn’t this an argument to immediately do it qualitatively?
Ukraine should become barrier-freeA barrier-free space is a space in which all people can perform the same actions regardless of health, age or gender. Of course, a country whose citizens suffer from war should be barrier-free. Is Ukraine like that? No. When Big City Lab conducted accessibility audits for the World Bank, we noticed that often the building in which the rehabilitation is taking place hinders the rehabilitation.
The essence of such institutions is to help a person learn to do all everyday activities again so that he can live independently. Walk if possible or use a wheelchair. Pick up a fork, tie shoelaces, open a bedside table, sit on the bed, get out of bed. A rehabilitation center is a space for a person to regain all basic skills.
There should be a model apartment where a person can practice doing such things. It should be possible to go outside. There should be common spaces where you can spend time with your family, so that all visitors do not crowd into the ward.
In fact, rehabilitation centers place a person in a space where he cannot do anything by himself: everything is brought to him, he is not allowed to move on his own. A person turns into an object, and the institution does not help patients to recover.
Public spaces are also not adapted: streets, public transport, schools, hospitals. Accessibility in the city is long and expensive. A path of a thousand ramps starts with the first one, but few have the stamina and focus to reach a thousand.
Every building, every pedestrian crossing, every square meter of sidewalk needs attention. There are many objects and they all have different owners: some are state owned, some are cooperatively owned, some are privately owned. However, most of the infrastructure is on the balance sheet of cities. Accordingly, in the context of the realization of physical barrier-freeness, the leadership lies with the local authorities.
Now a big public demand is forming, because we have veterans, wounded soldiers, injured civilians. This should encourage private owners to make their infrastructure inclusive. After all, it should be a shame if a person with a disability cannot enter your shop or cafe.
Of course, building a barrier-free space is easier than transforming a location, but where are the limits of these changes? Which objects should be fundamentally changed, and which should be preserved? This is another question to which society must find an answer.
what to doThink comprehensively: immediately take into account how individual transformed locations will shape the overall ecosystem of the city. To rethink the past, without trying to mindlessly discard it. Adapt the space for people.
Changes do not happen if resources and money are not invested in them. This is the price of Ukraine of the future: comfortable and safe, with accessible infrastructure, aesthetic objects and awareness of which cities we want to live in.
* – build better than it was (eng.)