Ruslana Bars is an architect who has been working with Drozdov & Partners for over three years. In her opinion, there is no better training than constant and varied practice, and each project of the bureau is like a new page in life. Let’s get to know Ruslana better:

Why did you choose architecture? 

In a way, it was a pragmatic decision. Since childhood, I have had a flair for creativity – I used to sculpt, draw a little, and sometimes knit. Thanks to constant practice and studying at special courses, I developed the most in drawing during my school life. At the same time, my love for mathematics grew, and later for other exact sciences, such as geometry, algebra, physics, and chemistry. 

When I started thinking and talking about my future profession, gradually, with the help of my parents, I realized that architecture is the profession that best combines creative and analytical thinking. Besides, all my childhood I liked to watch all kinds of TV programs about repairs and construction, or look at magazines with photos of various buildings.

Where did you get your education? Did your education end there? 

My education began at the age of 13 at the Kharkiv College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, where I studied for 4 years and received a diploma with honors, which gave me the opportunity to waste no time and enter the third year of the Kharkiv National University of Civil Engineering and Architecture. At the university, I received first a bachelor’s degree and then a master’s degree.

At the moment, my main focus is working on real projects. In my opinion, there is no better learning than constant and varied practice. But I do not rule out the possibility of continuing my studies at the university in the future.

What hard and soft skills do you think you have the most developed?

This would be an interesting story about transformation. 

I have a certain personality trait that can be a big obstacle in life. It consists in the fact that I very quickly get interested in something new and start to study it actively, but I quickly lose interest. It used to bother me because it scattered my attention on a bunch of things that were not relevant to me. But I learned to use it as part of my work. There are no identical projects, you constantly have to face something new and explore it. This is where my periodic desire to learn something helps. In conclusion, I can call it the ability to learn, because I quickly become interested in a new relevant topic, due to a certain level of excitement, I very quickly find the necessary information and immediately use it in practice. Thanks to this, I can develop quite quickly, which is extremely important in any profession. 

How many years have you been working in architecture?

I have been working for more than six years. As soon as I entered the university, I found my first permanent job in a small bureau in Kharkiv. Then there was another bureau, where I worked for two and a half years, and when the pandemic started, I came to work at Drozdov & Partners. I have been working here for three and a half years now.

Photo: Margo Didichenko

What do you enjoy most about your job?

Variability. It is very difficult for me to maintain a sense of comfort and satisfaction when nothing changes. And each new project is like a new page in my life. It keeps me from getting bogged down in routine.

What is important in the work of an architect?

The ability to adapt your thinking to different design conditions. 

I mentioned above that there are no identical projects. Each next one differs from the previous one in terms of conditions, customer needs, team, deadlines… Accordingly, you need to be able to quickly adjust yourself to new tasks and rhythms in order not to waste time. And, of course, you need to be able to quickly search for and assimilate new information.  It is the combination of these two aspects that can allow you to maximize the use of time to create a quality product.

What projects do you enjoy working on the most?

My heart belongs to urban projects. Every time I hear that the bureau has received an order to develop a cottage community or a residential neighborhood, I hope to become part of the team that will work on it. From an early age, architecture for me was not so much about buildings as about the space in which they are built. No building can exist without a well-designed environment. When I walk around Kharkiv, Lviv or any other city, I first pay attention to how the pedestrian part of the street is arranged, and only then to the architecture itself. 

Which project of Drozdov & Partners is your favorite?

It is difficult for me to single out one project, because there are those in which I participated and love them very much, and there are those in which I did not have a share of work, but I would really like to have that experience. 

But I can definitely single out the only project in which the focus was not on people for the first time – a horse club in Kharkiv. We do most of our work in the bureau by asking ourselves: “How will a person feel in this space?”, and here it’s a completely different story. Here it’s about horses. This is a completely new level of analytics, because we know a lot about comfortable spaces for people, but here we need to imagine comfortable conditions for completely different creatures. I would really like to work with such non-standard tasks in the future.

What architects do you look up to? 

I am inspired by those professionals whose projects meet my need to be emulated. That is, when I am faced with a certain task, but I do not have my own experience, I can turn to existing realizations of similar tasks for some “inspiration”. And the list of such architects and bureaus that I can turn to is endless. Moreover, it is constantly updated. 

What else inspires you?

Now I am inspired by the idea that as an architect, I can influence the development and reconstruction of Ukraine after the war by participating in useful projects. And this applies not only to professional activities and not only to reconstruction – if I have any other chance to involve my own forces in our victory, then I will definitely use it.

And the most important thing is my cats, who give me their love and restore my psychological resource at the end of the working day.

What is your favorite stage in architectural design?

I get the most out of the production process when the project idea is already formed, and all that remains is to find the “presentation language” and implement it in such a way that our concept becomes fully understood. After all, no matter how cool the idea is, it is important to present it fully. 

What do you like most about the work of Drozdov & Partners?

I have already mentioned a lot about the work itself, so I want to mention something more “life-like” in this question – socialization. 

I have very different colleagues, each of them has their own character, vision, preferences, manners… And being able to find something in common with each of them is a very cool skill that helps not only in work but also in life. With all these huge differences between us, we maintain a warm atmosphere in the team. This indicates a high level of emotional intelligence of the team, and also affects the ability to build constructive conversations during work. Of course, not everything is perfect, and we have disputes, but this is normal and we know how to work with it.

What projects would you like to work on in the future?

I am attracted to scale. Perhaps it’s something about satisfying my own ego, but I’m very pleased to realize that after implementation, my projects will have a certain impact on the environment and will also serve as an example of a quality product for other developers, that is, they will set a certain development trend. Perhaps this is partly why I like to work on urban projects. 

In your opinion, what will be important in the future reconstruction of Ukraine?

The ability to learn from mistakes, which applies to absolutely everything. We have finally realized with whom we can build friendly relations, but there are still many crucial lessons that we, as a society, have yet to learn. 

As for our sphere specifically, citizens and authorities need to come to an understanding of what a safe and comfortable city looks like. We need to look at the current trends in the development of already established large cities with experience of transformation, and understand how to make the spaces we live in safe and able to protect us from new potential aggression. 

However, examples alone are not enough, we need to be able to analyze and see what is wrong with our cities and how they should be transformed.