Amid War, Bay Area Architects Aid Reconstruction in Ukrainian Town

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 17 July 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

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Summary

The Ukrainian town of Irpin made international headlines at the outset of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion when local reservists repelled Russian forces advancing toward Kyiv. But the toll was severe for the town Ukraine has now designated a “hero city.” Hundreds of civilians were killed during Russia’s month-long occupation of Irpin, and thousands of buildings were destroyed. Among those was the main campus building of the State Tax University. Now a Bay Area organization is helping to rebuild the university, bringing design and construction ideas that it hopes will be a model for other sites. We’ll talk about the project and the multilayered challenges Ukraine faces as it seeks to rebuild while still at war. The reporting for this episode was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Women on the Ground: Reporting from Ukraine’s Unseen Frontlines Initiative in partnership with the Howard G. Buffett Foundation. Guests: Zhanna Bezpiatchuk, reporter, BBC Ukraine Margie O'Driscoll, executive director, Center for Innovation Eugene Chumakov, design and project architect, Stantec - a sustainable engineering and architecture firm Yuriy Gorodnichenko, professor of economics, UC Berkeley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for KQED Podcasts comes from Landmark College, commemorating 40 years of educating people who learn differently, with programs on campus and online for both students and professionals.
0:11.6	Learn more at landmark.edu.
0:14.8	Support for KQED podcasts comes from the San Jose Museum of Art.
0:19.2	Photographer Paw Hoare explores homeland and family among her Hmong American community.
0:25.4	See the imaginative landscape.
0:27.7	Learn more at S-JM-U-S-A-R-T.org.
0:32.5	From K-Q-E-D.
0:45.5	Thank you. KQED. From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.
0:49.4	The Ukrainian town of Irpine made global headlines in 2022 when it repelled Russian forces advancing on Kyiv, but the toll was severe.
0:59.0	Hundreds of civilians killed and thousands of buildings destroyed.
1:03.0	Now, a Bay Area organization is helping to rebuild a local university, which it hopes will be a model for major reconstruction projects in a Ukraine
1:12.5	that has been devastated by Russia's strikes on the country. We'll talk about the challenges
1:17.7	Ukraine faces that seeks to rebuild while still at war. So coming up next, right after this
1:23.6	news.
1:37.6	Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal.
1:47.1	The war in Ukraine has not ended. Troops go to the front. Missiles fall at night, and yet life has to continue and the country has to rebuild, even as buildings continue to be destroyed by Russian forces. Today, we'll
1:54.4	look at a model for rebuilding a university in the town of Irpin, which famously repelled Russian troops
2:00.6	trying to take Kiev. But first, we want to put the project in the town of Urpin, which famously repelled Russian troops trying to take Kiev.
2:02.5	But first, we want to put the project in the context of the scale of rebuilding that the country will require.
2:09.9	To do that, we're joined by Yuri Gorodnechenko, who is a professor of economics at UC Berkeley.
2:16.1	Welcome, Yuri.
2:17.0	Thank you for having me.
	...

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