The article “What Remains in the Rubble: The Story of Apartment Block 2B” is an immersive experience that brings the plight of the war in Ukraine closer to our news readers. The story is centred around an apartment block in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine that was hit by a Russian missile on March 22, 2023. The reader navigates the article by scrolling and is led along the building’s facade into the apartments of three different families that live there. In Instagram-like stories using photogrammetry, photographs and text, the resident recount how they experienced and survived the attack.

The intention behind the project and chosen approach :

In Ukraine, attacks on civilian targets have become an integral part of Russian warfare. Since the beginning of the war on February 24, at least 8,451 Ukrainian civilians have died as a result of military violence. Daily air raid alarms and the indiscriminate targeting of civilian areas contribute to psychological distress and disrupt normal life. When Dominic Nahr, a photojournalist, and Jonas Roth, an international journalist, visited Ukraine in spring 2023, their goal was to shed light on the suffering of the Ukrainian population during these attacks. Going beyond a traditional news article, we recognised the importance of making the impact on civilians as tangible as possible for our readers. Leveraging Nahr's intimate portrait work, photogrammetry of residents' apartments, and a simultaneous blend of text and visual material, the project aims to immerse readers in the world of the affected families

The process and the methods:

Nahr and Roth reached Zaporizhzhia, a city in southern Ukraine located 40 kilometres from the front, six days after the attack. While they had been travelling to the city, Adina Renner, a visual journalist based in Switzerland, had created a prototype of the story using available visual material from social media. On-site, Nahr and Roth were able to view the prototype on their mobile phones on site and therefore collect voices and images in a manner consistent to the concept. Back in Switzerland, Renner refined the visual storytelling concept, Roth and Nahr wrote the text and edited the images and Manz – a 3D specialist – produced videos of the photogrammetry. In addition, the team was expanded to include two programmers, Alex Kräuchi and Franco Gervasi, who implemented the story using the latest web technologies.