4TH YEAR studio II

Collection Of Bosnian Tales

Rekindling the lost bonds of a divided Nation. Using architecture as the vehicle for socio-cultural healing in Bosnia & Herzegovina.

A social-cultural exploration of how architecture can play a role into promoting healing in ethnically divided nations. This project was developed as an intervention for Bosnia and Herzegovina as a way to socially reintegrate its people, which is currently split into three distinct ethnic groups The Bosniaks, the Bosnian Croats and the Bosnian Serbs. The project used as its main precedent the K67 Kiosk, which was an architectural symbol of the unity these people once experienced in a past not too far away.

To tackle this issue, me and my partner Michelle Ovanessians decided to develop an universal kit of parts that could be assembled and deployed in a variety of arrangements and locations to create communal spaces that promote conversation and culturally enriching activities.

The entire project was developed as a folktale, telling the story of the Bosnian Nation as it emerged after the break up of Yugoslavia and how our architecture, as a character, plays a part in rescuing the Unity that the South Slav people enjoyed under the Yugoslav regime.

In the end, we developed five different interventions for different locations within Bosnia, each of them representing a solution to a specific issue the Nation currently experiences.

When developing a design language for the project, the most prominent cultural and situational traditions of each city were made into a catalog, from which the simplest geometry that could host them was derived. These geometric instances were then converted into a set of universal pieces and subsequently organized into a modular kit of parts that could be manipulated to create programs.

Through experimentation and iteration, the system was shown to have an intrinsic versatility to it, which felt intuitive and playful. The parts could be attached to each other, vary in scale to create dierent element types, and be assembled with dierent materials to change the nature of their functions. The system becomes a world of possibilities.

The light weight framing system is designed with unique wood joints that define its connections, and grooves that receive the modular panels.

The joints interlock to create the static frame, and can be used in different combinations to create various frame shapes.

Panels can slide into the grooves to complement the assembly and provide lateral bracing when necessary.

When in place, the panels also help to create variability in the assembly, defining different types of spaces and bringing different color to different designs.

Floatable panels were also designed, which similarly took advantage of the slide-in groove system to make water assemblies possible.

Taking advantage of this intuitive and playful nature of the pieces the act of their assembly was made into a part of the architectural experience, where people of all backgrounds and ages could come together to create their own shared spaces.

The kit of parts was divided between framing and panel sets, which would modularly vary in scale with pieces in 9’; 6’; 3’ and 1.5’ sizes. The panels also varied in shape, color and material to further increase the array of possible combinations.

MOSTAR

A city marked by the intense ethnic separation between Muslims and Catholics. In this particular location we approached the problem by identifying which were the local activities that could play a part on stripping those differences away and gather people in a space that promoted spontaneous encounters between the two parts. And, by doing so, promote more light hearted conversations through joyful socialization.

To accomplish that goal, we combined the strong coffee culture of the city with the unique bridge jumping tradition of Mostar, creating a dynamic outdoor space that promotes play and creates a powerful social condenser along the city’ s Iconic Old Bridge .

SREBRENICA

Srebrenica is known for being the site of one of the largest genocides in history, when Bosnian Serbs massacred innocent Bosniaks in an act of ethnic cleansing. The emotional damage from that event still hunts the citizens of this small town to this day, so we decided to deploy our project to help bringing the community back together .

Since Srebrenica is a very small town, any intervention has the potential to become a citywide event, and to harness that potential we wanted to play with activities that promote sharing and reunion. So our chosen program was a series of outdoor cooking stations, which we organized into a park, where people can gather around the fire pits and rejoice around the food they prepared.

ZENICA

Zenica used to be one of the largest and most thriving cities in the old Yugoslavia. Its economy was boosted by the metallurgical industry and the city was the stage for a lot of construction developments for the workforce. As the years went by, the city became a concrete jungle marked by its severe problem with pollution and an oppressing cityscape filled with multistory monolithic buildings. Overall, it became an undesirable place to live.

Our intervention in Zenica was meant to address the lack of humanity in the city spaces as well as provide systems that could mitigate the effects of the city’s pollution. The outcome were two separate interventions. The first being a facade system to revitalize one of the many monolithic buildings in the city center, using plants extensively to assist on the filtering of the air. The second being a park development within a pre existing park that had fallen into disuse.

BIHAC

We were attracted to this city as a site because aside from having the dividing issues our other cities have, it has a very peculiar landscape. Its river, the Una, is filled with small waterfalls along its path, and the people of Bihac have developed a strong river culture that revolves around playing in such spots. So we took this as an opportunity to further test our kit of parts.

The resulting product was a floating Bazaar and Park complex to stimulate even more group interactions in the river by promoting collective play along with commercial activities.

Take a look at the complete flipbook

project information

Project Name: Re-inventing K-67

Project Location: Bosnia & Herzegovina (Multiple L ocations)

Professor: Dijana Handanovic

Project Type: Academic/ Group Work

Partner: Michelle Ovanessians