Spatial Planning

The Spatial Planning cluster supports local governments in Ukraine by introducing innovative and collaborative planning methods, tailored to tackle the combined challenges of prolonged planning reforms and war. Drawing insights from the Swiss culture of planning in dialogue, known for effectively addressing complex spatial challenges, it offers planning approaches and tools that go beyond the scope of conventional general plans. The cluster’s members voluntarily offer their expertise to help set up and guide planning procedures in Ukraine, with the pilot case of the “test planning” method currently underway in Lviv.

Test planning – a method for solving complex urban development and spatial planning tasks

Ukrainian spatial planning faces a complex array of challenges from prolonged territorial and planning reforms, as well as the effects of the ongoing war. Planners in Ukraine must balance between addressing the emergent needs and visions of long-term, sustainable post-war renewal; the coexistence of micro-projects and meta-narratives; and the combined effects of martial law’s centralising forces and society’s informal, situational practices. Effectively addressing these tensions requires flexible, adaptable and people-centred planning methods.

Test planning is a collaborative planning process streamlined to identify, understand and tackle significant spatial conflicts, challenges, and opportunities by engaging with various forms of agency. Its format invites all stakeholders (planning professionals, political decision-makers, investors, interest groups, and locals) to participate. It is a legally non-binding planning instrument that can effectively operate in dynamic contexts and uncertain situations. Testing and evaluating different strategies in the participative interplay of design and dialogue not only generates innovative ideas, but may also secure political consent. This, in turn, grants the planning process political legitimacy and makes its goals more feasible.

Work in Progress

The test planning method was introduced and presented by the cluster at the exhibition “ETH with Ukraine – Exchanging Knowledge for a Sustainable and Resilient Future,” held at ETH Zurich in 2024.

Since October 2025, the cluster has supported the test planning project “Lviv North” in partnership with the City of Lviv and the City and Canton of Zurich. Lviv North is an urban fringe area of approximately 690 hectares in the northern expansion zone of the city. It combines multi-dwelling housing clusters, fragmented gardening allotment plots, large municipal land reserves, and extensive green spaces. The area also hosts the UNBROKEN ecosystem, which provides medical care and comprehensive solutions for the rehabilitation, integration and housing of victims of the war. Thus, it is central to Lviv’s evolving role as a hub of resilience, care, and recovery.

Five interdisciplinary teams – composed of Ukrainian and European, including Swiss, planning offices – are developing strategic proposals for a coherent spatial structure integrating housing, services, mobility and open space. The results will inform the revision of existing plans and contribute to the future comprehensive plan of Lviv municipality (hromada).

In addition to the concrete planning outcomes for the development of Lviv North, the application of the test planning method helps to establish, the test planning project “Lviv North” helps to establish a collaborative local planning culture and to generate planning know-how for other Ukrainian municipalities and the Ukrainian planning and design community. The early outcomes of the project will be presented at the Lviv Urban Forum 2026.

Members and Contact

Kees Christiaanse, founder of KCAP Architects and Planners and retired professor of architecture and urban design at ETH Zurich and TU Berlin, k.christiaanse@arch.ethz.ch
Daniel Kiss, architect and urban planner, co-founder of XM Architekten Basel, dkiss@xm-architekten.ch
Franziska Matt, urban planner, project manager at City of Zurich, Office for Urban Planning, franzi.matt@gmail.com
Nataliia Mysak, architect and researcher, founder of Spatial Practices Lab, Lviv, nataliia.mysak@gmail.com
Urs Thomann, urban planner , consultant in the GIZ/SECO project Integrated Urban Recovery in Ukraine urs@co-evolving.space
Yegor Vlasenko, doctoral researcher at the Laboratory of Urbanism, EPF Lausanne, iegor.vlasenko@epfl.ch

Photo by Yegor Vlasenko

Photo by Roman Baluk

Photo by Yegor Vlasenko

Photo by Roman Baluk