Shigeru Ban has visited the city of Lviv in western Ukraine twice since the Russian invasion began. The first time, in September last year, ¡°most of the ground floor of buildings was covered by sandbags,¡± the Japanese architect recalls. ¡°As soon as I checked into my hotel, they showed me the basement shelter in case I had to escape.¡±

When Ban, 66, returned to Lviv in June this year, the sandbags were mostly gone and he ¡°felt that life was more normalized.¡± However, soon after, the city was hit by a Russian missile strike that killed 10 civilians, prompting Human Rights Watch to a ¡°possible war crime.¡±

¡°So even on the west side of Ukraine, there is no safe place,¡± Ban says.

The architect is likely to return to Lviv again in the near future: He was tasked by the city¡¯s mayor, Andriy Sadovyy, to design a new surgical wing as part of Lviv¡¯s hospital and its rehabilitation center, which is called .

The city, whose historic center is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has seen 5 million people displaced by the conflict pass through it, with 150,000 currently based there, Sadovyy said at a earlier this month at the Foreign Correspondents¡¯ Club of Japan in Tokyo, at which Ban also spoke.

Lviv has converted many of its medical facilities to respond to the needs of the war injured, providing people from all over Ukraine with comprehensive care ranging from reconstructive surgery and robotic prosthetics ¡ª which are manufactured in Lviv ¡ª to psychological support.

While aid for the city¡¯s hospital has poured in from all over the world ¡ª including from the Japanese Red Cross, which helped the rehabilitation center expand and provided assistance for it ¡ª infrastructure has been stretched to capacity.

The plan for the Unbroken surgical center has already been drawn up, and Ban and Sadovyy are trying to find donors, including in Japan, to allow building to begin.

¡°Every day we have funeral ceremonies in my city, every day we host the wounded,¡± up to 50,000 at a time, Sadovyy said. ¡°We¡¯ve built in Lviv a huge ecosystem of humanity unbroken.¡±

Having worked in disaster zones for 30 years, Ban is all too familiar with the kind of destruction Ukraine faces. As an architect seeking to improve the conditions of those reeling from catastrophic events, he is also well-versed in the reconstruction that follows.

After working with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees to provide temporary shelters for those fleeing the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in 1995 Ban designed temporary housing for Vietnamese refugees impacted by the Great Hanshin Earthquake earthquake ¡ª as well as a temporary church...