Constructing Hope: Ukraine Opening Reception

Please join us for a discussion with the curators and cocktail reception at the Chicago Architecture Center to honor the opening of our new exhibition, Constructing Hope: Ukraine.

Constructing Hope: Ukraine presents the work of over a dozen participants applying architectural thinking to support Ukraine’s short- and long-term reconstruction efforts. The second iteration of this exhibition, following a run at the Center for Architecture in New York, brings together a wide range of projects to illustrate how architecture can facilitate crucial support networks for entire communities.

Constructing Hope: Ukraine reveals the power of collaboration, illuminating architecture’s critical role in building a collective resistance that can generate hope for imperiled communities in Ukraine and beyond.

Curator talk: 5:30 - 6:30 p.m.

Cocktail reception: 6:30 - 8 p.m.

Keynote speaker

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Phasellus leo nulla, porta a ligula ut, commodo ultrices quam. Suspendisse non mollis odio.

Sed vestibulum ut arcu vel feugiat. Morbi iaculis augue risus, at pharetra nibh blandit nec. Etiam feugiat volutpat nunc vel aliquet. Maecenas mollis turpis at odio fringilla, eget iaculis tortor congue.

Speakers:

Ashley Bigham is an Associate Professor at the Knowlton School of Architecture and co-director of Outpost Office. She has been a Fulbright Fellow in Ukraine, a MacDowell Fellow, and a Walter B. Sanders Fellow at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. At The Ohio State University, she is an affiliate faculty member of the Center for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies. In addition, she is a collaborative partner and visiting faculty at the Kharkiv School of Architecture in Ukraine.
Ashley’s creative work and writing engage architecture through a study of consumption and domesticity, focusing on architecture’s entanglement with the production and fulfillment of consumer desire. She is the editor of Fulfilled: Architecture, Excess, and Desire (Applied Research + Design, 2022). Her writing and work has appeared in publications such as MAS Context, Dialectic, The Architect’s Newspaper, Metropolis, Mark, CLOG, and Surface.
The design work of Outpost Office has been exhibited at the Chicago Architecture Biennial, Milwaukee Art Museum, the Tallinn Architecture Biennale, Roca London Gallery, Wedge Gallery, Yale School of Architecture, Princeton School of Architecture, Harvard GSD, and The Cooper Union.
Ashley holds a Master of Architecture from Yale University and a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Tennessee, where she was awarded the Tau Sigma Delta Bronze Medal for best graduating project. Prior to co-founding Outpost Office, Ashley practiced at MOS and Gray Organschi Architecture in New Haven, CT.
Artist and curator Betty Roytburd (b.1989, Odesa, Ukraine) lives and works in New York City. Her sculptural installations, videos, and writing have been featured in publications such as Arcadia Missa’s How to Sleep Faster, as well as in group and solo exhibitions at CSRA, Jack Hanley, Alyssa Davis, Good Enough ATL, 15 Orient, Gern en Regalia and Kimberly Klark galleries. Her work reflects on the decomposition of memory and the weaponization of nostalgia. She is the co-founder of SPILKA NGO and is currently in pursuit of an MSW at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College.
Sasha Topolnytska is an American-Ukrainian architectural designer and educator in Brooklyn, NY. She is a founder of FARMMM – a design studio exploring architecture beyond buildings and working at different scales of objects, installations, exhibitions, research, public realm projects, and more. Sasha’s work is driven by a strong interest in the social and cultural values of architecture and design. She often collaborates and works with other architects, creatives, communities, and advocates whose perspectives and values allow her to always have a critical understanding of the built environment to create spaces and experiences that are inclusive and joyful for others.
Sasha's design work has been awarded the NYCxDesign award, and her collaborative projects have received support from the Center for Architecture AIA in NYC, the New York State Council of the Arts, and the Design Trust for Public Space. She holds a Master of Architecture degree from Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning at the University of Michigan and a Bachelor's in Architecture from Lawrence Technological University. Sasha teaches architecture undergraduate and graduate studios at the Spitzer School of Architecture at City College and Interior Design courses at the New School. She has previously taught at Pratt. She has previously worked for award-winning architecture and design offices such as TenBerke, Architecture+Information, and JG Neukomm Architecture.
Sasha Topolnytska is a co-curator of the Constructing Hope: Ukraine exhibition, opening in March 2025 at the Chicago Architecture Center. The first exhibition of Constructing Hope: Ukraine took place at the Center for Architecture AIA in New York City during the Summer of 2024.