ESTDEV’s Ultimate Challenge to Rebuild Ukraine: 48 Hours to Design Modular Family Homes for Children Without One

These modular family homes will be durable and quick to install, all to provide urgent relief to orphans and children forced to evacuate without their parents. There are roughly 2.8 million Internally Displaced People (IDPs) currently in Ukraine. The Zhytomyr region itself has 70,929 IDPs, 20,016 of whom are children. One-third of these displaced children have lost their parents, or were forced to flee without them. These children are currently put up in hospitals and other public buildings, a temporary solution, and the need to shelter and care for them grows by the day.

Last weekend, ESTDEV challenged teams to each create a complete prototype of a single family modular home that can comfortably accommodate 6-8 children and their foster parents.

Garage 48’s “Future of Wood” Makeathon: 70 Prototypes in 5 Years

arage 48’s “Future of Wood” began as an experiment in applying Garage48’s exhilarating hackathon layout to developing and prototyping new wood-based technology. The event was a success, and “Future of Wood” makeathons have led to the prototypes of 70 visionary ideas over the past five years. This year, Garage48’s “Rebuild Ukraine” theme garnered so much enthusiasm that over 100 participants registered in record time, forcing the organisation to close event registration early.

“This year, interest in the event was at a record high, and we are thrilled. We want to provide our participants with a creative environment and proper tools, so that they can thrive as they develop their ideas through the design process and bring their vision to life in the form of a prototype. Many of our participants and mentors come from different backgrounds, and value interdisciplinary cooperation and diverse solutions. Their ideas promote wood-related expertise and enable us to offer tangible, quality solutions to help Ukraine,” shared Noora Ustav, Garage48’s “Future of Wood” 2022 Project Manager.

Ukraine Needs Brilliantly Simple Ideas

Garage48’s “Future of Wood” development weekend is the perfect platform for collaboration, featuring novel situations and allowing designers to overcome bottlenecks in the architecture, woodworking, and forestry industries. “This year, co-organisers and partners are determined to expand solutions and opportunities beyond Estonia and the Baltics to support the reconstruction of Ukraine. Participants from Ukraine, jury members and mentors from the Ukrainian architecture community, and the platform of ESTDEV’s challenge make up a network of contacts necessary for transferring expertise and innovative solutions that target Ukraine’s most vital areas of need,” explained Kadri Tiisvelt, Garage48 board member and “Future of Wood” 2022 Project Coordinator.

For this year’s makeathon, ESTDEV challenged teams to each create a complete prototype of a single family modular home that can comfortably accommodate 6-8 children and their foster parents.

Tarmo Needo, head of ESTDEV’s Infrastructure Development Projects in Ukraine, commented, “Yesterday evening, 19 teams presented their ideas and demo projects at EKA, the Estonian Academy of the Arts. Of the five teams who proposed their innovative solutions, the team 1+x was the winner of the ESTDEV challenge and Garage48’s ‘Future of Wood’ 2022 event. 1+x finished the weekend with a house that was architecturally attractive, clever, and which aptly combined wood and contemporary straw bale designs. Their design also uses solar energy and can operate off-grid. Our gratitude and congratulations go out to the Garage48 team; it was nothing short of inspiring to see such enthusiastic teams take action to rebuild Ukraine.”

One key focus area in this year’s challenge was to create something that was modular, circular, and climate-neutral. The prefabrication potential of modular structures is vital to sustainable, large-scale construction, and creating modulars that are circular takes this one step further, as they allow for radically innovative ways of financing construction since they can be rolled, folded, flipped, or packed. Teams were challenged to propose such solutions for rebuilding Ukraine: structures that are modular, made largely of natural materials, and designed with reuse in mind. “Wood and other natural materials are excellent for inventive thinking, because their full potential is far from met,” noted Anna Tommingas, head of the Estonian Academy of Arts Wooden Architecture Competence Center PAKK. Since the war in Ukraine began, EKA has offered war refugees the opportunity to study in Estonia, as well as to be co-organisers of the Garage48 makeathon. These educators see that this event has provided their students from Ukraine develop solutions that directly aid the rebuilding of their own country.

All From a Kindergarten

The ESTDEV challenge sprouted from our project to construct a kindergarten using modular structures that can be constructed in Estonia and assembled quickly on-site in Ovruch. The first phase of this kindergarten will include four classrooms, ready to welcome 80 children in all. During the second phase, the kindergarten will be expanded by another four classrooms, enlarging the kindergarten to accommodate up to 160 children. The government has allocated 1.9 million euros from this year’s Supplementary Budget to fund this project.