UNITY Modular Shelters

At the beginning of 2022, the department of TU Darmstadt was approached by the BDB Bund Deutscher Baumeister regarding participation in the UNITY project.

The aim of this project is to have an already defined housing concept worked on by various organisations in Germany (mainly colleges and universities) and to enable prototype construction. The BDB (BundDeutscherBaumeister) supervises and coordinates the project in Germany, provides contact persons and contacts to material. The general goal is to prepare for the reconstruction of Ukraine after the war.
For this purpose, a concept is available from the architectural office Balbek from Kiev with support from a German office in terms of statics and feasibility. In addition, sponsors for materials from Germany have already been found.
The task of the German teams is to construct the building units as a prototype, to put them to imagined uses and to realise the concept 1:1.

The entire project is defined as an aid project, is financed by donations and is to inform with an event in summer 2023 as an exhibition. Participation is open and results are expected around mid-2023 from May. The results are then to be shown as part of the Architecture Summer in Hamburg.

The concept for the new dwellings is based on an architecture conceived as a modular timber construction. Already after the war of 2014, the first „temporary units“ were built, which still exist today as container settlements. Based on the experience, the aim is to learn from the past and to create medium-term situations that are better accepted, more comfortable, etc. The FGPG has been approached.

The FGPG was asked to contribute its know-how and competences in building (1:1, exhibitions and architectural projects in low-budget or SimpleBuilding), to optimise things and to contribute to the reconstruction in Ukraine. The UNITY project forms another contribution to the topic of 1:1 realisation and meets the approach of experimental building at its core. In addition to the obligatory project goals of working on the module in the form of a wooden building, the FGPG is trying to develop the topic in the context of building with paper and cardboard in parallel in the project and to carry the buildingwithpaper as a profiling topic outwards here as well. Structurally, this is to take the form of a crowning attachment on the wooden module, which will be constructed from square sleeves. The wooden building base and the attachment made of paper materials then form a unit, an ensemble, with the character of an archetype. Thus, the more artificial idea of representation is in the foreground, rather than the attempt to represent a house in a structurally and constructively correct way.
The planned free-standing half-timbered structure is intended to provide an open space for events on site and, in addition, to display further vivid 1:1 architectural models in the inner area.

In addition to the obligatory project goals, the FGPG is trying to develop the topic in the context of building with paper and cardboard in parallel and to present BUILDINGWITHPAPER as a profiling topic to the outside world.

The FGPG and the buildingwithpaper team thrive on support from many sides and on being able to work on things in the way they are currently done. We would like to thank our sponsors:

Sponsors:

•  Stillger Stiftung
• TU Darmstadt
• Fachbereich Architektur
• Paul & Co
• TFT
• Zimmerei Radl
• Messebau Löser
• Mengler Stiftung
• Gerspach Film
• Keim

Team FGPG for UNITY:

• Nina Christl
• Veruschka Janouschkovetz
• Alexandra Kapelle
• Fabian Luttropp
• Khaled Nassar
• Jannis Protzmann
• Karim Ramadan
• David Waldeck
• under the constant supervision of Prof. Ariel Auslender, Head of the Department of Plastic Design.

PARTNERS / RESPONSIBLE PERSONS
Balbek office: www.balbek.com/reukraine-eng
BDB: www.baumeister-online.de/aktivitaten/bdb-meets-balbek-bureau-project-unity/