Gold at the end of the rainbow: Kyiv’s colourful housing wins at the World Architecture Festival

Kyiv housing project, Comfort Town, has scooped a top prize at this year’s World Architecture Festival. The rainbow-coloured buildings took first prize at the WAF ceremony in Amsterdam last week as part of the — yep, you guessed it — Use of Colour category.

Taking a break from Ukraine’s Soviet past, Comfort Town hosts 180 low-rise apartment buildings over a 40-hectare area. Built on the site of a disused rubber factory, the complex is a playful LEGO-inspired response to the 50s and 60s communist-era housing encircling it. The architectural studio Archimatika, which conceived Comfort City in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis, say that the project’s low budget meant that they opted for simple geometric shapes, flat facades, and no ornate elements, for which they compensated with bold colours.

Founded in 2008, the World Architecture Festival is an annual awards ceremony which celebrates the best architecture and development projects.