Office for Future’s Dvir Turns a Former School in Stavyshche Into 42 Homes for Displaced Ukrainian Families

Florence and Lausanne studio Office for Future has unveiled Dvir, a plan to convert a former school in Stavyshche, a rural town about 140 kilometres south of Kyiv, into temporary homes for 42 families forced from their houses by the war that Russia’s invasion began in 2022. The full title of the project is Dvir, The Shared Courtyard.

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The client is the Charity Foundation Housing for IDP, and Dvir is the third project the foundation has promoted in Ukraine. Instead of building from scratch, the architects keep the roughly 1,900 square metre school, a landmark that generations of local pupils passed through, and fit a new residential programme into it.

Inside Dvir

The 42 apartments come in four types, ranging from studios to three bedroom flats, along with fully accessible units for people with disabilities. Targeted demolition opens up the existing plan, and a freestanding timber walkway leads to the front doors. Around 200 square metres of shared indoor space, children’s play areas and meeting rooms sit next to the private homes, and some of these rooms are meant to host cultural events that bring in people from the town.

Above the old building goes a new timber roof carrying some 800 square metres of photovoltaic panels, while the envelope is upgraded as part of an energy retrofit.

Unsealing the schoolyard

The asphalt yard at the centre of the building is the main landscape move. About 850 square metres of paving will be lifted so that the ground can absorb rain and support planting, while a few strips of the original surface remain as paths through the new garden.

Founder Paolo Russo said the starting point was asking “how this place could best welcome people who have experienced the trauma of losing their homes.” The answer, he explained, was to work with “a former school that is part of their memory” and to let a new community grow that can fit into the wider life of Stavyshche. In his words, the project shows how “architecture becomes a tool for social reconstruction.”