Yulia Yankovskaya’s address to BrSTU students
In September, under the international cooperation agreement between St Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering and Brest State Technical University, a series of scientific-educational and design-oriented creative events took place at the Belarusian university.
SPbGASU was represented by Yulia Yankovskaya, DSc in Architecture, Head of the Department of Urban Planning, and Daria Boytsova, Associate Professor at the Department of Architectural Design. The program included lectures and practical sessions focused on developing a compositional-artistic approach to architectural and urban design, as well as collaborative design activities.
The participants paid special attention to the master plan for the Mukhavets River embankment in Brest, jointly developed in 2025 by students from SPbGASU and BrSTU. Using this project as a case study, teachers and students discussed approaches to strategic urban planning, working with the urban environment, and identifying the architectural identity of the area.
Collaborative design enables a deeper exploration of the existing context, the conducting of site surveys and theoretical analysis of the area, and the development of architectural and urban planning solutions that can be presented to the city administration.
An important aspect of this cooperation has been the exchange of experience between architectural schools in Russia and the Republic of Belarus. As one of Russia’s oldest institutions specializing in architecture and civil engineering, SPbGASU represents the country’s established traditions in training architects and civil engineers—including approaches to balanced urban development and the preservation of historical and architectural heritage when creating new developments. Their Belarusian colleagues, in turn, are developing and modernizing the traditions of the Soviet school of architecture.
New joint projects were discussed during a meeting between representatives of SPbGASU and BrSTU and the Chief Architect of the Brest Region, Nikolai Vlasyuk. The participants examined current trends in the development of architecture and urban spaces in the Republic of Belarus, as well as prospects for future collaboration.
Daria Boytsova, Nikolay Vlasyuk, and Yulia YankovskayaOne of the outcomes of this collaboration was a plan for the embankment of the Mukhavets River in Brest: students from two universities developed a design for the "City of Masters" space. The project team consisted of Margarita Kotikova and Irina Zaplatkina (SPbGASU), along with Ekaterina Makarevich, Maria Tsymbalova, and Daria Makarevich(BrSTU), under the supervision of Anastasia Urdasheva (SPbGASU).
The collaboration between SPbGASU and BrSTU integrates educational, research, and design components, creating opportunities for the further exchange of experience between schools of architecture in Russia and the Republic of Belarus.
