Dates: 29 June 2026
Location: University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
About the Workshop
The built environment is a valuable and vulnerable asset, and its destruction is one of the most damaging aspects of wars and conflicts. Post-conflict reconstruction in emergency contexts and with poor planning tends to prioritize speed over quality and long-term resilience. The reconstruction of the built environment is essential for social, economic, and cultural recovery. It is also a major incentive for resettlement, an opportunity to build back better and to respond to present and future needs. As post war recovery and reconstruction is not something that every country has recent experience with, including Ukrainian professionals and practitioners, it is very important to build capacities by empowering the existing and future professionals and sharing with them the post war and post conflict experiences.
Architecture Sans Frontières International and CIFAL York, with the support of ASF Spain, will develop and offer a workshop for architects, planners, engineers, designers, and decision-makers on the post-war recovery and reconstruction of Ukraine. The workshop tackles several topics in relation to post-war recovery and reconstruction. It focuses on emergency, transitional, and permanent housing; governance and reconstruction; refugee and displaced families return; tenure security; and the preservation of the cultural identity and healing through architecture.
Objectives
- Examine the impacts of war on built environments and communities, and the key aspects of post-war recovery and reconstruction.
- Appreciate the governance context—law, norms, guidelines—and roles of stakeholders—including governments, NGOs, private sector, architects, planners, designers, and community members—in post-war recovery.
- Discuss how best to apply sustainability and SDGs in post-war recovery and reconstruction.
- Analyze lessons from post-war recovery, identifying factors behind success and failure.
- Develop strategies for post-war and conflict recovery that incorporate risk reduction, resilience, equity, and sustainability.
- Understand the importance of gender equality, disability, and social inclusion (GEDISI) and how to incorporate them into post-war recovery.
- Evaluate economic recovery strategies, focusing on livelihoods, vulnerable groups, food security, employment, business continuity, enterprise development, and sustainable, inclusive planning.
- Apply monitoring and evaluation principles to post-war recovery programs and develop plans to improve outcomes.
Participants who successfully complete the one-day workshop will be presented with a certificate of completion from UNITAR, CIFAL York, and Architecture Sans Frontières.
Instructors
Dr. Ali Asgary
Disaster & Emergency Management, School of Administration Studies, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Executive Director, Advanced Disaster, Emergency and Rapid Response Simulation (ADERSIM) Lab
Director, CIFAL York
Dr. Ali Asgary is a Professor of Disaster and Emergency Management in the School of Administrative Studies at York University. He currently serves as the Director of CIFAL York and the Executive Director of the Advanced Disaster, Emergency & Rapid-response Simulation (ADERSIM) facility. His academic and professional career features a strong focus on analyzing and improving post-disaster recovery, community resilience, and reconstruction processes. Throughout his career, Dr. Asgary has secured and led significant research grants dedicated to long-term disaster recovery after major disasters in Canada and internationally, including projects focused on the institutionalization of post-disaster reconstruction experiences, the recovery of small businesses, post-disaster resettlement, and the building of long-term community resilience. Dr. Asgary's extensive publication record demonstrates a sustained focus on post-disaster transformative adaptation and resettlement. He edited the 2018 book on Resettlement Challenges for Displaced Population and Refugees. His peer-reviewed research covers a global spectrum of recovery efforts. In particular, he has published impactful empirical studies on housing reconstruction, small business continuity and recovery, and post-disaster development opportunities.
Dr. Faten Kikano
Refugee studies and urban vulnerability
Board Member & Migration Expert – Architecture Sans Frontières International
Faten Kikano is a researcher specialized in migration studies, with a background in project management, architecture, and team leadership. She holds a PhD in architecture. Her research focuses on the study of governance, power, and identity in refugee spaces. Her target is to bridge the gap between research and policy and to translate knowledge into policy recommendations leading to significant social, economic, and urban improvement in vulnerable urban settlements. Her leadership in international and national organizations has equipped her with the skills to build coalitions for impactful solutions that address displacement and post-conflict reconstruction. She is proficient in editing, peer-review, publishing, and lecturing.
Faten works as a Principal Director with the BC2 Inter-Nations Collaborative Team, where she has led several projects aiming to support Indigenous communities in Canada in their territorial planning. She has also let government-funded projects on inclusive spaces, homelessness, climate change adaption, and citizen empowerment in Canada. Faten is the president of Liquid Space Lab, a think tank specialized in the study of vulnerable human settlements. She is a board member at Architecture Sans Frontières International. Her expertise offers an opportunity for developing inclusive policies and approaches that lead to spatial and environmental equity.
Nataliya Bezborodova, PhD(c)
Research and Teaching Assistant, University of Alberta
Nataliya Bezborodova is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and a researcher at the Rowett Institute and an Honorary Research Fellow at the Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen, UK. She has been set to work on her dissertation for the University of Alberta on a remote basis and relocated back to Ukraine in Fall 2021 and, fleeing the war actions, currently resides in the UK. She is interested in an interdisciplinary approach including anthropology, ethnography, cultural, and religious studies. Her doctoral project focuses on the meaning of space and place in migrations, multilayered identity, and the role of religion in the social and political turmoil in the example of “Flying Community,” a group that connects members from Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and Italy. In 2016, Nataliya got her MA degree focusing on the social media representations of the Maidan protests in Ukraine.
She also worked with the Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv, Ukraine), Goethe University (Frankfurt Main, Germany), and the University of Edinburgh (UK).
Fulco Treffers
Co-Founder, CEO, and Head of Urban Planning; Urban Coalition for Ukraine, Ro3kvit
Fulco Treffers is CEO and lead urban planner at Ro3kvit urban coalition for Ukraine. Specialisms: recovery, social urban design, participation, resilience and safety. Born, raised, educated in The Netherlands. Works in Ukraine since 2015, lives in Ukraine since 2023. Speaker about urban recovery planning. Guest lecturer at many universities and architecture academies in Ukraine and Europe. Doing PhD research ‘planning with uncertainties’ at Limerick University.
Dr. Carmen Mendoza Arroyo
Associate Professor of Urban Design and Planning, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya
Co-Director, Master's in Post-Crisis Design: Inclusive Approaches to Rebuilding Place and Community, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
Dr. Carmen Mendoza Arroyo is an Architect, Associate Professor of Urbanism, and PhD in Urbanism with over twenty years of international experience in sustainable and resilient urban development. Her work focuses on post-crisis recovery, climate adaptation, spatial inequality, and community-centered urban regeneration. She has published book chapters, academic articles, and research projects related to these fields of study.
She is Director of the Master in Post-crisis Design at UPC School. Former Director of the Master’s in International Cooperation: Sustainable Emergency Architecture (MICSEA) at UIC, she has led international projects across Europe and Latin America in collaboration with institutions including UN-Habitat, IFRC, UNHCR, and the European Commission.
Workshop Proposed Topics
- The Housing Continuum: Navigating the critical transition from emergency shelters to transitional housing and permanent resettlement.
- Rights & Governance: Establishing tenure security and robust policies to manage the legal complexities of reconstruction.
- Healing through Heritage: Using architecture to preserve cultural identity and foster community healing in the built environment.
- Safe Returns: Developing strategies for the dignified return and reintegration of refugees and displaced families.
- Sustainable Resilience: Applying SDGs and risk reduction to ensure long-term physical and economic stability.
- Inclusive Oversight: Utilizing GEDISI principles and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) to ensure no group is left behind.
Target Participants
This workshop is beneficial for professionals, practitioners, researchers, and students interested in post-war and post-conflict recovery and reconstruction in general, particularly those interested in or are involved with post-war recovery and reconstruction in Ukraine. This workshop enables participants to rapidly gain knowledge and skills required to make interventions in post-war recovery and reconstruction.
Researchers and students in architecture, planning, engineering, construction management, disaster, and emergency management with interest in post-disaster recovery and reconstruction in general and those who will be involved in post-war recovery and reconstruction in Ukraine.
Workshop Format and Registration
The majority of the workshop content will be in a hybrid format to allow interested individuals to participate remotely, particularly from the war-impacted countries and regions.
Participation in the workshop is free, space is limited, and we encourage interested individuals to register in advance using this registration form.
Maximum number of in-person participants: 30
Maximum number of online participants: Unlimited
Registration Deadline: June 21, 2026
Workshop Co-Directors
Dr. Ali Asgary, Professor of Disaster & Emergency Management, Director, CIFAL York, York University
Dr. Faten Kikano, Architecture Sans Frontières International
Workshop Coordinators
Mx. Francesco del Carpio, Operations Coordinator, CIFAL York
Mrs. Federica Rando, Architecture Sans Frontières International
Mrs. Susana Pesce, Board member ASF - Sweden