More than 30 years have passed since Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina and once a model of multicultural harmony, became a shooting gallery.
In the 47-month siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian war of the 1990s, more than 11,000 residents were killed and 50,000 injured, mostly by mortar shells and snipers from Serb nationalist forces. Sixty-five percent of the city’s buildings were damaged and 80 percent of the city’s utility infrastructure was destroyed.
Vernes Causevic, 37, was a small child during the siege. After his father was seriously injured, his family fled to London, where Mr. Causevic grew up to become an architect who never stopped looking back.
Today, together with his English partner, Lucy Dinnen, with whom they founded the studio Project V Architecture in London, explore architecture as a tool for post-war return, reconstruction and reconciliation.
“There has never been a serious national strategy for sustainable return to Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Mr Causevic said, referring to the country’s more than 2 million citizens displaced during the war.
In 2017, the couple established a second home and office in Sarajevo, and in 2021 paid around $80,000 for a 538-square-foot apartment in Grbavica (pronounced grr-BAH-vee-tsah). This neighborhood in the heart of the city had been occupied by Serbian nationalist forces during the war and used as a base for attacks, but was now attracting new residents.
The small unit in a socialist-era building became not only their home, but also a model for creating flexible, healthy environments. Rather than erasing the memory of traumatic events, the project pays tribute to the resilience of Sarajevo’s citizens while proposing ideas for coping with a difficult future affected by climate change.
For the project — which they named Zemlja, the Bosnian word for “earth,” “land” and “country” — the architects removed three interior walls and installed terracotta-colored wool curtains that run along the ceiling lines. Around the unit, curtains respond to occupants’ changing needs for social interaction and privacy. Enclosing or expanding areas used for relaxing, working, sleeping or eating, the fabric adjusts light and changes mood with a flick of the wrist.
The curtains also have a historical appeal. During the war, Grbavica was cut off from the rest of Sarajevo and snipers were placed in its towers. Getting rid of the apartment walls was symbolic of breaking down those barriers, Mr. Kausevich said, but the curtains also refer to the sheets and tarps strung between buildings across the neighborhood to block the view. of shooters.
“In our work and research, we are inspired by remarkable examples of creative citizen interventions that have enabled people to adapt the architecture of their homes and streets to survive under siege,” said Ms Dinnen, 38.
The apartment’s “rooms” are anchored by custom furniture, including an L-shaped office unit with storage in the study that doubles as a bedroom closet in the back and connects to a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf in the living room.
These stable, functional islands are what give Zemlja its sense of spaciousness, Mr. Causevic said. Often the strategy in small apartments is to do the opposite – disconnect the furniture, so it rolls or changes state – but it is “awkward and uncomfortable” to transform a bed into a sofa or “live under your workspace”, he said. .
The retrofit, which cost the architects $25,000, answers the question, “How do you create a truly peaceful living environment for a stressful urban area?” said Mrs. Dinnen.
Today’s Sarajevo not only bears the scars of wartime, but faces corruption, pollution and disorganized administration. The border line that divided Bosnia-Herzegovina into two entities after the war — one with a Bosnian Serb majority and the other with Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) and Bosnian Croats — is less than a mile from their apartment.
Architects looked for resources that could improve human and economic health — including local wood, which is plentiful (more than half of the country is forested). Spruce replaces the plastic commonly found in windows, reducing condensation and the risk of mold. Herringbone floors are oiled white oak. The furniture is steamed beech.
The clay the couple found in the area was used in a coffee table and living room shelves. They also bought clay plaster from a German company, Claytec, to coat their walls and ceiling, a moisture-regulating application that had not been used in Sarajevo since decades before the war.
Other materials were sourced from quarries, mines and factories in areas administered by different authorities to bring together a palette that represents the country’s cultural diversity. Mr. Kausevich called it “a metaphor for reconciliation.”
The builders joked that the curtains made the apartment feel like a theater, but they were impressed with the result and loved working with natural clay plaster, the architects recalled. “That was one of the main goals, to inspire this generation of builders, who were used to doing things a certain way,” Mr Causevic said.
Basically, however, the project follows the architectural tradition of Sarajevo by reflecting individual needs rather than city codes. This can be immediately appreciated in the unique treatment of the balconies on the exterior of the building.
“One thing we celebrate in our design and teaching is the ad-hoc-ism of Sarajevo,” Ms Dinnen said. “That way of building and changing and repairing his own unit creates this incredible texture.”
Living Small is a bi-weekly column that explores what it takes to live a simpler, more sustainable or more compact life.
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