Olga Kononova

After the start of the war, I had the choice to go abroad, but there was a feeling that I am most needed in Ukraine at this critical moment. The ReStart Ukraine project is led and participated in by my friends and close acquaintances, young professionals who I have already worked with in other projects. The multi-layered approach and the involvement of an interdisciplinary team is a strong feature of the ReStart initiative, which is why getting  involved in this project was both a challenge and an opportunity to put my knowledge and skills to work for my country.  My experience consists of working on projects of various scales and context: from planning of streets and river embankments to strategies of integrated development of Ukrainian amalgamated territorial hromads (communities); from the project of research and improvement of transport safety near schools to research into local informal architecture of individual houses of the Black Sea coast.