On September 20, 2022, the Rector of the Ukrainian National Forestry University, corresponding member of the NAS of Ukraine, Professor Volodymyr Zahorsky took part in an international online meeting, initiated and organized by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine (Oleg Nemchynov, Minister of the CMU), the Investment Attraction Office/UkraineInvest (Andrii Kakusha, Chief Advisor to the Executive Director, Advisor to the Minister of the CMU), Swedish-Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce in Scandinavia (Ludmila Lemrini, General Director and Jamal Lemrini, Project Manager).
Among the honored participants were representatives of the Karlstad Innovation Park (head of the PAPER PROVINCE project – Elin Appel), the Swedish Federation of Woodworking and Furniture Industry (head – Suzanne Rudenstam), the research project “Smart City of Sweden”/IVL Research Smart City Sweden (head – Osten Ekengren), the architectural company ARCH + H.R. (head - Jorge Lobos), the State Fund for the Promotion of Youth Housing Construction (Chairman of the Board - Serhiy Komnatny), the Borodyanka United Territorial Community (acting head of the village - Georgy Yerko), the competition "Borodyanka is looking for architects" (co-founder - Maksym Kaminskyi), the company "Servus Trading House" (co-founder - Andriy Maly).
The main goal of the meeting was to establish cooperation between scientists, authorities, investors, and businesses for the construction of modular wooden houses in the cities of Ukraine for people who suffered as a result of the military aggression of the Russian Federation.
Currently, there are enterprises in Ukraine for the production of wooden houses of various types and structures, but an important task is to develop rational solutions for choosing such types and structures of wooden houses that will be economically profitable, effective, and practical. To make the right decisions and implement such initiatives, the project organizers invited the Ukrainian National Forestry University to participate as a center of education and science, because, in August of this year, the University together with the Association of Woodworkers and Harvesters of Lviv Oblast held a round table on the topic "Wooden house construction and providing housing for internally displaced people" and developed specific proposals and recommendations for solving the problem. Such an idea attracted the interest and support of the Office of the President of Ukraine, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine, the Ministry of Development of Communities and Territories of Ukraine, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine, the State Agency of Forest Resources of Ukraine, the Lviv Regional Military Administration, Lviv Regional Council, People's Deputies of Ukraine, heads of regional administrations, directors of forestry enterprises, heads of united territorial communities and business representatives.
Representing the University, Rector Volodymyr Zagorsky told the participants of the meeting about the available opportunities to participate in the development of the program for the development of wooden house construction, and also shared plans for the creation of a scientific and technical hub with the following priority areas of activity: analysis of the production capacities of Ukrainian enterprises in wooden house construction, development of rational solutions for the selection of effective types of structures of wooden houses, expert evaluation of architectural and planning solutions, technological expertise of elements of building structures and forecasting of their operational properties, etc. It is important for the organizers of the project that the graduates of the Ukrainian National Forestry University are highly qualified specialists in such important specialties as architecture and urban planning, construction and civil engineering, design, woodworking and furniture technologies, forestry and horticulture, environmental protection technologies.
During the meeting, the participants paid special attention to discussing the situation with the restoration of the territories destroyed by the occupiers. Yes, only according to preliminary data, the need for modular houses is 1,000 houses for 4,000 inhabitants of Borodyanka, and, unfortunately, there are a lot of such settlements. After listening to all the urgent problems, it was decided to hold a competition for an architectural solution for the restoration of Borodyanka and to develop specific proposals by all project participants.
On this occasion, Swedish companies submitted their proposals for the project of modular residential construction and proposed existing Smart City innovative solutions in the process of restoration of Borodyanka (urban planning, waste processing, and water treatment system, environmental friendliness of the transport system, etc.). The company "Servus Trading House", which has many years of experience in building modular wooden houses not only in Ukraine but also in European countries, also presented opportunities for partnership and cooperation.
At the end of the meeting, the participants agreed on the development of specific proposals by each side and the creation of small working groups for cooperation between Swedish and Ukrainian organizations for the construction of social housing, and the creation of industrial and scientific, and technical parks.
