In a central region of Ukraine, YOD Group has built three guesthouses that replicate the silhouette of the mazanka, the traditional rural house, by emptying it of its material and opening it up to the landscape.
What is translated here into glass and emptiness is less a form than an idea: that of refuge, rendered paradoxically transparent. These architectural creations by the Ukrainian studio resemble attempts at definition. Not the definition of a program or a style, but that of a culture—or rather, of what a culture preserves as a fundamental image: a form immediately recognizable, even before it is named. mazanka This is one of them. A traditional Ukrainian house with thick, whitewashed walls and a thatched roof, it belongs to those rural archetypes that seem to have always existed, so perfectly do they harmonize with the climate, the land, and the ways of those who built and inhabited them. The YOD Group agency, founded in Kyiv and led by Volodymyr Nepyivoda, has taken hold of this vernacular architecture and subjected it to the test of the present.
Completed in 2026, the "Hata-Mazanka" project—also known as "Under the Reed Roof"—comprises three accommodation pavilions built on a private estate in central Ukraine. What immediately strikes the viewer is the tension between two seemingly incompatible elements: a massive, sculptural roof, covered in reeds as is customary, which dominates the entire structure with its dark, domed silhouette; and beneath it, where white walls would traditionally have been, a completely glazed envelope. Glass and transparency. Where the mazanka While historical houses were closed in on themselves, with opaque walls and few openings – a protective thickness against the cold of the steppes – these houses open entirely to the outside, seeming to dissolve into the environment.
It is in this gap that the project's concept, and its inherent risk, resides. Nepyivoda thus formulates his philosophy: "It's about revealing the essence of a place and decoding its cultural meanings. We studied the image of the traditional Ukrainian house, distilled its essential characteristics, and reinterpreted them through our own lens to create a contemporary architectural object." His reading of the mazanka is less formal than symbolic: despite its walls, this architecture expressed an aspiration for clarity, for a form of domestic purity, for whiteness, carefully maintained by regular whitewashing with lime. Translated into current terms, this ideal becomes glass, transparency, light passing through.
The roof, however, is equally impressive. Disproportionately large compared to the volume it covers, it rises to a height of 10 meters at its highest point, creating an unexpected sense of verticality and spaciousness in this 50-square-meter house. The interior face of the dome is clad in wooden tiles reminiscent of the shingles traditionally used on Ukrainian roofs, while technical systems, such as ventilation and air conditioning, are seamlessly integrated.
The interior layout is strikingly geometric: a central concrete block houses the bathroom, with the bedroom and living area extending outwards on either side. The latter features a minimalist fireplace whose circular opening is a nod to the Ukrainian petch, the large tiled stove that was the physical and symbolic heart of the traditional farmhouse. The absence of a television is a deliberate choice. Contemplating the flames and maintaining constant visual contact with the surrounding nature promotes informational detoxification and emotional restoration.
The flooring contributes to this sense of continuity: a stone carpet-like covering extends from the interior to the exterior, blurring the boundary between inside and outside and making the landscape an integral part of the decor. The design incorporates Ukrainian creators – furniture by Kateryna Sokolova for the Noom brand, black ceramics by Guculiya, a floor lamp made of natural fibers – as if the project inherently carried, without explicitly claiming it, a subtle form of national identity.
What makes this achievement remarkable is precisely this economy of means in the reinterpretation. What remains of the mazanka In these glass pavilions, it is something barely tangible: a proportion, the silhouette of the roof in the landscape, a relationship between protection and openness.
