URBANIDEAS is an Ukrainian architectural office based in Lviv, that aims to develop high-quality architectural and urban environment. Our approach aims at bringing intense research and analysis together with structured planning processes to design, characterized by great attention to detail and person. Our architecture is a task of cultural and social environment, place and time linking.
Each project for us is not only a challenge, it is also a story that we want to realize and it is always a mood and a dream.
Our award-winning office was found in 20011 and has grown since then to a team of 9 colleagues.
Zelena street
In the courtyard of a residential district on Zelenа Street in Lviv, the mood of wild thickets and urban design of landscaping elements are combined. Here grow mainly perennial grasses, astilbes, sage, aquilegia and shrubs that have the property of being evergreen: laurel, privet. Plane trees have been planted from the trees as the fastest shade in the area where they are most needed – near recreation and children’s playgrounds, and maples – closer to the houses, they form the front of pedestrian alleys.
The courtyard also has one of the first atypical playgrounds with swing nests and more radical climbing equipment for older children. Although the yard area is not very large, it is full of various activities, interesting for the leisure of various residents.
Mytna square
The square is located near the oldest part of the historic city, in front of the Baroque wooden sculpture museum, the former church and monastery of Clarisse’s, opposite the entry gate to the medieval city. The square was very neglected and with rests of Soviet design. The area no longer fulfilled its functions of public space in the city.
“We wanted to create a convenient and pleasant place that encourages people to stay in the city, and we want to become the space, that should united around itself, and not just act as a transit way. We wanted to become the square as the connecting place where people will meet each other, or just relax. Before rebuilding the square, there were no way to do anything, and people here did not stay here at all.”
The idea of renovation of the square was to bring life into an abandoned space and to create a place where different events will take place. Now here are orchestras, there are dances and performances in the open air, even in the winter there is a Christmas tree.
The design and repair processes of the square lasted for two years, there were replaced all communications networks, repaired the entrance to the underground passage and old and very destroyed cover from concrete slabs of soviet times, reconstructed the old fountain.
The new fruit trees appeared on the square during landscape renovating are the symbols of the former monastery gardens that grew up near the monastery of Clarisse’s and in its courtyard in pre-war times.
Also, on the square there is a bronze sculpture from the 1960s years – a little boy fluttering with water, stayed standing as a symbol of the past, and as a memorial from childhood of many Lviv inhabitants. The sculpture was cleaned, refurbished and set back on the square. Now the boy catches the water splashes, as it was planned, but not realized in the 1960s.
On the Mytna Square are installed in the paving about one hundred lamps, which smoothly concentrate to the entrance to the Museum, former church.
Theodora square playgruund
Recently we have been working on children’s spaces: we would like to make them untypical and interesting for children of all ages, as well as to give parents a chance to feel a little bit like a child.
ADVENTURE. What are the children lacking in the dense historic city? Adventure! They want to wade through the impenetrable thickets of the Amazon trees, run over the bridges over the dips, climb the Everest Rock and snorkel in the Sahara Sands, and then hide in a cozy lodge from all this world of adventure and the blazing sun. That is why we offer: 1) forest with ropes and nets, 2) climbing rocks, 3) hanging bridge, 4) small pebbles for pouring, 5) cozy cottage for protection from the sun and rain , 6) a small vegetable garden with spicy herbs or whatever is planted there.
ACCESSIBILITY. We make a ramp and different surfaces for climbing: many logs and ropes, nets, sloping planes – all those things that are available to children with different abilities.
DIFFERENT AGE GROUPS. For the youngest we offer a place where you can play with loose materials (screenings), artificial relief of hills, riders, a gentle rock climbing wall, rope netting, hanging bridge. For middle age there are nets and ropes for climbing, a faster rock climbing wall, logs, and the possibility of climbing vertical logs. For older children and teens, there are hanging swings – places to hang, wooden hammocks. There are also plenty of seating and a rocking benches for adults.
TACTILITY. We use a variety of touch materials: natural wood, soft rubber coating of artificial landscape, loose sifting fraction without dust – they give a richer perception of the world, especially for children with visual impairments.
LANDSCAPING. We arrange bamboo thickets for maximum “wildness” and naturalness. We plant a small city garden: spicy herbs teach children where the seasonings come from, and you can plant any vegetable: carrots, beets, zucchini, strawberries, and more. The small garden teaches a caring and responsible attitude to nature, tells where food comes from and enables different generations to spend more time together and share experiences.
