Tactical urbanism in wartime (case studies: Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv)

Abstract

The full-scale war in Ukraine has caused radical transformations in urban systems. It has called into question the effectiveness of traditional models of strategic and spatial planning. This has highlighted the need for adaptive, rapid, and low-resource forms of response to crisis-related challenges. Under these conditions, tactical urbanism is transformed from a tool for local aesthetic and demonstrative interventions into an important mechanism of crisis management, ensuring security, supporting social infrastructure, and building urban resilience. At the same time, scientific discourse lacks a holistic conceptualization of tactical urbanism as a tool for urban functioning in wartime, which constitutes the scientific problem addressed in this study.

The aim of the article is to provide a scientific substantiation of the transformation of tactical urbanism in wartime into a tool for crisis adaptation and urban resilience, using Ukrainian cities as case studies. The methodological basis of the study includes qualitative case analysis, a comparative approach, and structural-functional analysis. The empirical basis consists of the cases of Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Lviv – cities with different socio-spatial models, levels of institutional resilience, and types of civic mobilization.

The study revealed a fundamental change in the functional logic of tactical urbanism – from the pre-war critical-demonstrative and aesthetic paradigm to a military, productive, security, and socio-infrastructural paradigm. In wartime conditions, tactical urbanism acquires the features of a survival tool for urban systems. This is manifested in the creation of shelters, safe hubs, volunteer spaces, temporary community support centres, and crisis infrastructure. A comparative analysis of the cases of Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Lviv allowed the identification of a typology of wartime models of tactical urbanism and their role in shaping the social, institutional, and spatial resilience of cities.

The scientific novelty of the research lies in the conceptualization of tactical urbanism as an element of the urban resilience system under war conditions, the development of a typology of its wartime transformations, and the formation of a generalized model of wartime tactical urbanism as a tool for crisis management in urban space. The practical significance of the results lies in their potential application in post-war recovery processes, the formation of urban security policies, integrated spatial planning, and the development of reconstruction strategies for Ukrainian cities, taking into account the principles of adaptability, rapid implementation, and civil society participation.