Casagrande designs underground schools for Ukraine and warns of Russia

Finnish architect Marco Casagrande is designing protective structures and underground schools in Ukraine, and says Russia would show no mercy if it attacked Finland, Yle reports.

Casagrande works as head of protective structures at Finnish company Temet, which makes blast-protection equipment. He has also visited Ukraine frequently as a guest professor of architecture at universities in Kharkiv and at King Danylo University.

His experience in countries at war has taught him that a society’s ability to withstand crises is essential. “If resilience crumbles, society is conquered,” he said.

The protective structures he works on are used in civil defence shelters, nuclear power plants, water services and building ventilation systems. In the event of a strike or radioactive fallout, he said, normal ventilation can become a danger.

Protecting children is the priority

Casagrande has also designed underground school buildings for children in Ukraine. He said the work is not merely technical: architecture should calm and help heal children traumatised by war. Protecting them is vital to keeping society functioning, he said.

Casagrande said he has seen how difficult everyday life has become in Ukraine, where attacks affect not only people in the trenches but also vulnerable members of society, including children. He said that if Russia attacked Finland, it would act as it does in Ukraine. “There should be no expectation of mercy. This has nothing to do with civilisation,” he said.

Ukrainian delegation studies Finnish shelters

Ukrainian MP Vyacheslav Rublev visited a civil defence shelter in Espoo last week. The delegation also included a representative of Ukraine’s special forces, whose name was withheld for security reasons. Rublev belongs to the Servant of the People party, like President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Rublev said the delegation wanted to learn from Finland’s experience building shelters since the end of the Second World War. He praised the links between shelters, which allow people to move between them, as well as their ventilation and water supplies. He had previously visited a shelter in Helsinki’s Merihaka district.

Finland and Ukraine lead a coalition established last year to develop Ukraine’s civil defence shelter system. Existing shelters in Ukraine can accommodate only half the population.

Rublev said he considers Finland better prepared for crises than other European countries, citing social unity and the ability to develop new technology quickly during wartime. Casagrande said Finland’s strength also lies in its national resilience and its readiness to care for the wider population in a crisis.