Helena Rafalsky (M.A.)

Helena Rafalsky, M.A. (she/her), works as an architect, researcher and teacher with a focus on critical spatial production, cooperative planning processes, and urban political engagement. She studied architecture at RWTH Aachen University (B.Sc.) and the Berlin University of the Arts, where she received her Master of Arts in Architecture. In recent years, her work has centered on participatory processes and the development of usage and operational models in direct collaboration with future users, serving as project lead particularly in the “Phase Null” of the transformation of educational and cultural buildings commissioned by public clients. She also initiates self-organized projects that experiment with everyday and care practices in public space – such as the “Kiezküche,” a weekly community kitchen in Berlin.

Since June 2025, she has been part of the research and teaching project LEER: Relearn, Rethink, Redesign, Reuse at the Department ARCHITECTURE CITIES ECONOMIES at the University of Kassel, funded by the Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre. The project develops new teaching formats with a focus on transformation, investigates the causes as well as the spatial, social, and economic consequences of vacancy, and designs strategies for the activation and reuse of vacant buildings in collaboration with students.