Acta Architectonica et Urbanistica (AAeU) is a double-blind peer-reviewed international research journal in the field of architecture and urbanism published by the University of Sarajevo – Faculty of Architecture. Journal focuses on research of cities and buildings and explores a wide spectrum of relevant topics, bridging the gap between theory and practice in the disciplines of architecture and urbanism. The journal invites architects, planners, urban designers, interior designers, landscape architects, civil engineers, art historians, geographers, cultural theorists, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists and scholars exploring architecture and built environment from various research perspectives. Taking into account such a wide range of topics, it is necessary to highlight the uniqueness of the journal that defines its identity framework. In this context, an objective approach to the issues of the current architectural scene in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Balkans, SE Europe is encouraged, as well as its positioning within the global environment of rapid changes, specificities, and contradictions. Acknowledging the fact that architects have a responsibility to address the socio-cultural atmosphere and offer potential solutions, the intention is to foster international exchange of experiences and knowledge, where scientific and practical approaches are equally valuable and inseparable, and their reflection is of utmost importance, both within the profession and beyond. Publication frequency of Acta Architectonica et Urbanistica (AAeU) is two issues per year (June and December). Authors are invited to submit their manuscripts throughout all year, and the journal editorial team will conduct the editorial selection, review and production process, and make sure that the article is published as soon as the process is completed. The submissions are made through the platform, where the authors will have a continuous update on the status of their submission.
University of Sarajevo - Faculty of Architecture
Acta Architectonica et Urbanistica (AAeU) journal is open access, it means that any researcher from any institution, anywhere in the world is able to access the full extent of AAeU publications with no subscription fees. This means that policy-makers, NGOs, journalists, practitioners, students, and an interested public have free access to the research articles. This increases the exposure and allows to disseminate knowledge to a much wider audience.
The Anatomy of Hostile Architecture: A Form-Function-Intent Typology for Urban Furniture and Urban Interior Space
Hostile Architecture represents a paradoxical design strategy that uses urban furniture and urban interior spaces as tools for social control, challenging the humanistic and inclusive goals of design and urban planning. While widely discussed, literature on Hostile Architecture at this micro-scale remains largely descriptive, lacking a systematic typology that deconstructs how these objects operate. This study addresses this gap by proposing an analytical framework to categorize Hostile Architecture practices. A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) was conducted to identify and analyze documented cases of Hostile Architecture in urban furniture. The methodology employed a qualitative content analysis, using a novel a priori analytical framework based on three axes: Form (the specific design strategies), Function (the bodily behaviors being blocked), and Intent (the underlying social motivations). The findings identified four primary Form categories (e.g., Dividers, Non-Ergonomic Surfaces, Deterrent Textures, Spatial Barriers). These forms are explicitly linked to the obstruction of four main Functions (e.g., sleeping/lying down, long-term sitting, skateboarding, gathering) and serve three primary social Intents: the exclusion of specific groups (notably homeless individuals and youth), the assertion of spatial control, and the commercialization of public space. The study's primary contribution is the development of this "form-function-intent" matrix, an analytical typology that moves beyond descriptive case studies. This model provides a new systematic tool for designers, planners, and researchers to critically deconstruct and challenge the ethical implications of exclusionary design.
Copyright (c) 2025 Acta Architectonica et Urbanistica https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
The landscape, a synonym for a vast, open world, can quickly become a claustorphobic playground of liminality. This is precisely what happened to the victims of the Bosnian war who fled Srebrenica after its downfall as a UN safe zone. While those unable to escape faced genocide – the largest in Europe after World War II – those who fled Srebrenica endured a harrowing 100 km long journey in hopes of reaching the village of Nezuk. The work explores how the landscape emotionally and functionally transforms for those involuntarily trapped in war becoming both a horrendous safe zone and a peaceful battleground. The landscape becomes the welcoming torturous place of being – the new open shelter. The work dives into the specific landscape along the path and wonders how it changes once it becomes not a mere coincided discovery, but a home for what feels to be an eternity. Simultaneously, the research consists of investigating the given landscape today, and the memory it portrays of the atrocious period, through the March of Peace, where the path is retraced annually on the anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide. Through on-site documentation and literature, the work seeks to discover the liminal aspect of the landscape and explore how it can become a tool for memory, leading to potential design interventions.
Extended Reality of Architecture: Beyond Photo-Reality of Architectural Representation and Visualization
Digital information technologies are extending the realm of reality through various types of virtual, mixed, and augmented reality encompassed by the term "extended reality" (XR). The notion of extended reality, reconsidered and interpreted within the larger framework of contemporary thought, incorporates architecture, including technology, culture, and society. The concept of extended reality, based on the assumption that the technological mediation of visual spatial experience generates a dynamic space of interaction between multiple realities across many layers of experience, provides a deeper comprehension of the role of architectural representation. As the photorealistic digital images currently dominate architectural visualization and presentation, exploring the concept of photorealism could lead to a deeper understanding of visual representation mediated by technology that can define the nature of spatial reality. Architectural representation is not merely an instrument for visualization of concepts or descriptions of tangible objects. It has generative, projective, and cognitive capacity that could augment and extend reality across multiple dimensions. Understanding their potential to change, develop, and expand the reality in which architecture is not only articulated and expressed but also concretized and experienced, the digital information technologies and generative artificial intelligence models can be meaningfully integrated with the architectural design process.
Spomenici: Hauntological Spectra of Yugoslav Architecture
This article explores Yugoslav monuments—spomenici—through the lens of hauntology and différance, framing them as spectral architectures where memory resists closure and meaning. Conceived as concrete affirmations of antifascist struggle and socialist solidarity, these structures now linger in an unsettled state: neither fully absorbed into the present nor entirely consigned to the past. Their ambiguous condition exposes the instability of collective memory, which is shaped as much by neglect and erasure as by acts of commemoration and reinterpretation. The study aims to demonstrate how spomenici challenge conventional understandings of memorial architecture, which often presume stable or singular narratives. By applying deconstructionist theory, the analysis interrogates the ways in which meaning is destabilized, re-inscribed, and contested across socio-political and aesthetic contexts. Methodologically, the research combines theoretical analysis with selected case studies and a pedagogical experiment in model-making conducted at Graz University of Technology, where students engaged in hands-on explorations of form and symbolism. The findings suggest that spomenici demand understanding of memorial architecture that moves beyond fixed narratives. The pedagogical case studies discussed here further illustrate how interdisciplinary methods—particularly those that foreground experimentation and dialogue—can uncover the multiplicity of meanings embedded within contested typologies. The article concludes that a hauntological reading of spomenici highlights their value as critical resources for rethinking the politics of remembrance. Far from being static carriers of history, they persist as spectral presences that continue to unsettle dominant narratives and provoke new engagements with cultural memory.
Primary Discipline: Architecture Secondary Disciplines: Urbanism / Urban Studies Sociology Memory Studies Philosophy / Ethics Technology Studies / Digital Humanities
4D GIS Visualisation of Agentic-AI Models
This research describes the Sarajevo Urban Digital Twin (UDT) as an applied tool for city planning and for presenting complex simulation results in an adequate way for a broad audience. Developed within the Urban Transformation Project Sarajevo (UTPS), it explains how traffic simulations from the ETH Zurich (ETHZ) software EnerPol are transformed from raw binary files into time-based scenes in ArcGIS Pro (ESRI). In areas with limited local data, satellite imagery is used to create the base 3D city model. The following sections describe how building footprints and heights are extracted not only to generate Level of Detail 2 (LOD2) models with roof shapes and precise outlines, but also to capture land-cover information essential for the UDT. The automatized workflow converts simulation events into georeferenced features and matches them with the street network, so planners can watch traffic patterns shift throughout the day based on different assumptions regarding population changes. A key purpose of the UDT is to make these data and scenarios visible and understandable for people with different professional backgrounds. By offering a shared visual reference, the model supports planning processes where citizens, experts, and officials need to discuss challenges and agree on policy strategies. The study shows how linking data collection, processing, and clear visual output creates a decision-support tool that helps turn complex urban information into knowledge that can guide real interventions with real stakeholders.
Multi-dimensional Analysis of Building Sustainability: Comparison of Reconstruction Scenarios in Singapore
Building sustainability is associated with multiple global development and climate change goals defined by the United Nations. Sustainability goals have different interpretations across different domains; the construction industry alone incorporates multiple professional domains involved in building projects. However, assessment of sustainability without alignment of interests, regional context and a unique strategy may lead to conflicting and suboptimal building design solutions. In this paper, multiple dimensions of sustainability assessment that affect building design and construction are investigated; first, terminology and concepts are critically analysed through wider research of scientific and grey literature defining the sustainability of buildings; second, a literature review methodology is used to identify and compare multi-dimensional analyses and existing frameworks; and finally, a multi-dimensional analysis of a building reconstruction in the context of Singapore is performed. The results show that sustainability of buildings is not a one-way street and that a sustainability strategy must prioritise not just dimensions but also categories, criteria and indicators for each dimension, and adapt the analysis to the context. While sustainability indicators are comparable, overall sustainability performance is not and requires a case-by-case approach. The case study on reconstruction scenarios in Singapore demonstrates four scenarios incorporating ten indicators of the three most investigated sustainability dimensions: social, economic, and environmental, measuring indicators that allow for comparison and decision-making. This research tackles the complexity of multi-dimensional sustainability with an example, informing and discussing current approaches for future analyses.
Decentering Perspectives: Embracing the Pluriverse in Researching the Architecture of the Belt and Road Initiative
This paper develops a pluriversal methodological framework for researching architecture within transanational infrastructure development, using the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a laboratory. Existing scholarship has often interpreted BRI projects through geopolitics or economic strategy, focusing on questions of China’s global strategy, resource security, and the extension of its sphere of influence (Cai, 2017; Summers, 2016). Within these narratives, architecture and urbanization typically appear as secondary by-products of development, subordinated to the logics of diplomacy and investment flows. This tendency overlooks the ways in which BRI projects actively shape spatial orders, produce new architectural forms, and generate contested meaning, which cannot be fully captured by universalizing interpretations. Drawing on decolonial and posthumanist thought (Escobar, 2018; de la Cadena & Blaser, 2018; Mignolo, 2011), the paper argues for methodologies that recognize infrastructures as plural artifacts rather than singular instruments. Building on extensive documentation of BRI projects, four orientations are proposed: recognizing multiple realities, grounding analysis in lived contexts, tracing relational entanglements, and valuing alternative logics. Case studies—from the Pakistan-China Technical and Vocational Institute in Gwadar and the Xi’an Silk and Road Conference Center, to the Hiyaa Housing Project in the Maldives, Kilamba Kiaxi in Angola, and the Lianglu-Cuntan Free Trade Port in Chongqing—demonstrate how BRI architectures simultaneously function as geopolitical symbols, civic institutions, everyday spaces, and material assemblages. By foregrounding plurality rather than universality, the paper reframes the BRI as a site of translation between diverse worlds, and advances a methodological agenda for architectural research that is inclusive, relational, and attentive to the co-existence of multiple epistemologies.
Spatial Justice: The Role of Housing and Social Policies in Social Inclusion and the Transformation of the Periphery
Contemporary urban development is increasingly characterized by processes of intensive urbanization, wherein housing policies often fail to address the needs of the broader community. The predominance of market-oriented housing models has resulted in high-density developments concentrated in central urban zones, where residential space is commodified—treated as a luxury good rather than a fundamental human right. This approach exacerbates social inequality, leaving peripheral urban areas infrastructurally underdeveloped and socially neglected, lacking in both quality public amenities and affordable housing options.The absence of spatial justice in urban planning produces patterns of spatial segregation, further marginalizing vulnerable social groups and obstructing balanced, integrated urban growth. While Podgorica has, for decades, expanded its housing stock predominantly through market-driven strategies—placing considerable pressure on central areas while overlooking the developmental potential of the periphery—Carabanchel (Madrid) emerges as a paradigmatic counterexample. There, social housing has been conceived as an architectural, urban, and social experiment that challenges conventional models. By juxtaposing these two urban trajectories, this paper seeks to demonstrate that inclusive social housing strategies can serve as effective instruments for empowering peripheral urban zones and mitigating the spatial and social consequences of inadequate housing policies.
This biographical essay traces the author’s personal and professional journey through three distinct architectural educational systems—Sarajevo, Ljubljana, and Norway—during periods of global, societal, and technological transformation in the 1990s and beyond. The author reflects on how dominant architectural movements of that era, such as deconstructivism and phenomenological architecture, influenced his approach to design. The text addresses the identity crisis facing the architectural profession today, amid climate change, technological advances, social inequality, and digitalization. A central theme is redefining the architect’s role: shifting from “builder of society” to “caretaker of space” and participant in co‑creative processes. The author champions a return to the craft while embracing new technologies as tools for a more creative, responsible, and inclusive architecture. He concludes that architects must relinquish control and cultivate “intuitive navigation” through complex societal and spatial challenges, engaging with users, clients, and other disciplines.
Copyright (c) 2025 Acta Architectonica et Urbanistica https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Stations of Change: Architecture in Transit
In this paper, Agošton reflects on over four decades of architectural practice shaped by his education in Sarajevo and enriched through work across six continents. He focuses particularly on the design of transit stations as essential civic spaces — structures that go beyond their functional role to become places of cultural identity, social encounter, and everyday ritual. Drawing from projects such as the Dubai Metro and Toronto’s Sheppard West Station, he shares how his approach has evolved to balance efficiency with empathy, and technical precision with contextual meaning. Transit architecture, in his experience, offers a unique opportunity to create infrastructure that is not only resilient and sustainable, but also human-centered and democratic. Through this reflection, he advocates for a design philosophy that listens deeply to place, people, and culture, and invites architects to consider how infrastructure can help shape soulful and inclusive cities in an era of rapid urban transformation.
Ethics of Remembering in Memory and Memorization
This critical reflection examines Sabina Tanović's two-decade trajectory of architectural and research practice, commencing with her 2006 graduation from the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Sarajevo. Using her memorial museum project dedicated to the siege of Sarajevo as a critical point of departure, she traces the evolution of her work from conventional architectural paradigms toward a practice that challenges established frameworks of traditional architectural production. Through critical autobiography, she interrogates the presumption that utility combined with beauty inherently produces meaning — an assumption that underpinned her education and early work but which her practice, focused on memorial spaces and difficult heritage, actively contests. This personal-professional evolution has profoundly informed her pedagogical approaches, particularly as they respond to intersecting crises: climate collapse, social disintegration, and the erosion of international legal frameworks. Reflecting on this transformative journey, the reflection offers insights into the politics of architecture's capacity to respond to challenges through reimagining the discipline's fundamental premises.
This text traces the journey of Boris Cindric, an architect born in Sarajevo, shaped by the structured and technically oriented educational system of socialist Yugoslavia, and later transformed by the experience of war, migration, and technological evolution. Rooted in the collective ideals of architecture as a social mission, the narrative confronts the trauma of urban destruction during the siege of Sarajevo and moves toward the concept of urban healing rather than mere physical reconstruction. The story expands into a deeper reflection on space, memory, and resilience, drawing on the work of critical urban thinkers such as Jane Jacobs and Kevin Lynch. A second formative phase unfolds in France, where the Beaux-Arts tradition—with its emphasis on artistic freedom, narrative, and interdisciplinary experimentation—offers a contrast to earlier technical rigidity. These dual legacies shape a practice grounded in complexity, humility, and openness. Faced with today’s global challenges—ecological crises, social fragmentation, and the rise of artificial intelligence—he recognizes the need to become a learner again: a mediator between tradition and transformation. Rather than rejecting technological tools, he proposes integrating AI as a means of deepening a humanistic approach to architecture. Architecture is not a final product, but a continuous process of care, interpretation, and reinvention—a project of re-learning how to live together in conditions of uncertainty.
The identified difference in the conceptualization and materialization of architecture from the perspective of three continents and cultures stems from a difference in the idea of the city, which, as a generative context, circumscribes all architectural production as both an intellectual construct and manifest reality. Such a finding is rooted in the premise of the city as a continuous object — an "urban artifact” — a causally unfolding relationship of constituent parts that generate the state of an integral (architectural) totality. This implies an idea of architecture as an instrument of inquiry into the possibility of the city (and thus the possibility of architecture) where the city is understood not as a fundamentally given and unquestionable condition to be complied with, but an evolving construct to be both sought and arrived to terms with. Select urban design projects undertaken at the Kansas City Design Center will offer a window into such a quest for the city, and the methodologies for analyzing and thinking the city in order to discover the possibilities for a design response at the point where the actual subject matter is no longer aligned with traditional and normative disciplinary subjects; where extra-disciplinary knowledge, needs and reality stand defiant of nominal practices (and the forms of things), and where the demand for social accountability and making a difference is higher than ever. The presented projects will make a case for expanding the boundaries of pedagogy, the applied relevance of academic work, and eventually a broader perspective for urban design thinking.
The aim of this article is to propose expanding the cooperation of researchers with the architectural and construction sector and the population in order to contribute to the quality of the education of architects in the context of continuous, global and local, social, economic, technological and ecological changes. The first part of the article aims to highlight the importance of the education acquired at the Faculty of Architecture in Sarajevo (1971-1976) as well as of the MSc degree in the field of revitalization of architectural heritage and the doctoral degree in the field of architectural history at the Faculty of Architecture in Zagreb, followed by professional experience in residential construction in Sarajevo (5 years) and in the education of students at the Faculty of Architecture in Sarajevo at the Department of Architectural History and Revitalization of Architectural Heritage (11 years). The article contains a couple of examples of the application of professional education and experiences in finding a job in the city of Algiers (1992-1994) and in building an academic career in Glasgow, Great Britain (1994-2022). The focus of the second part of the article is on the knowledge and experiences gained through expanding research interests through multi-institutional projects for knowledge exchange between researchers and the architectural-construction sector regarding sustainable architecture (existing and planned) and urban development (1998-2020). The United Nations Conference on "Environment and Development", held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 marked a turning point in the expansion of my research interests because it supported development that seeks to eliminate or significantly reduce the negative impacts of human activities on the biosphere. Recommendations regarding architectural education are based on research and experience gained through multidisciplinary, multi-institutional, international, regional and local projects over the course of 22 years.
A Spectre is Haunting Europe, the Spectre of Bauhaus
This paper reflects Selma Harrington's study at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism in Sarajevo, recalling the impressions, the atmosphere of the school, and its memorable personalities. It remotely draws on the concepts of exile and otherness (Walter Benjamin, Edward Said, Jean-Luc Nancy) and of homegrown poetic voices (Aleksa Šantić, Mak Dizdar). The formative impact on her professional development is linked to growing up in an environment marked by the ideas of social justice and equality, echoes of the post-WW2 renewal and reconstruction period, with increasing self-confidence and development in the region and internationally. This is followed by a somewhat nomadic professional engagement in Europe, Africa, and Asia — in practice, education, and activism in international professional associations such as the Architects Council of Europe (ACE) and the Union of International Architects (UIA). The broader cultural context around the Faculty calls for a gaze back to the ideas of the Bauhaus and the International Style in architecture, both of which had a defining influence on the character of architectural study and practice. The cyclical character of the Bosnian environment and built heritage, coupled with resilience and adaptation, mirrors the general societal development, as well as that of architecture and architects. The contemporary extraordinary opportunities from communication and digital technologies, contrasted with climate change, natural and human-caused disasters, narrow the gaps between local and regional post-modern global phenomena. This calls for a critical review and a competent cultural adaptation. The launch of the EU COM's New European Bauhaus (NEB) initiative — aimed at neighborhoods, bottom- up actions, and joint creative entrepreneurship — was a significant move amidst the pandemic. This essay develops a thesis that the NEB unfolds a value system that resonates with what her generation brought out and applied successfully while forging careers abroad. These point to a potential or a new link in a cyclical spiral of creativity, networking, and resilience, reconnecting the Faculty's past, present, and future.
Essay on Architecture - Predominant Frequencies
Abstract The article presents short, illustrated reflections on my knowledge of the architectural discipline, from learning about architecture — which culminates in the creation of a project — to engaging with modern architecture The study of architecture opens the door to a new world, an exciting battlefield of paper, projects, and oneself. During correction sessions at the faculty, we not only corrected drawings but also thought through buildings that would later become reality. Project practice focuses on teamwork and, at the same time, requires personal growth. In its temporally coordinated composition of dichotomous growth, Sarajevo's urban development is exemplified by buildings such as the Pension Fund by Muhamed and Reuf Kadić, Skenderija by Živorad Janković and Halid Muhasilović... The easiest way to understand this complex urban development process is through the book The Architecture of Bosnia and the Way to Modernity by Dušan Grabrijan and Juraj Neidhardt. One recognizes that invisible thread, which connects all architects and all those who seek salvation in form, in a specially formed resonance that thus forms context.
This narrative explores the journey of an architect from Sarajevo to London, tracing the evolution from early influences in a creative family environment through formal architectural education to specialisation in architectural conservation. The story unfolds through various professional experiences, including work in different architectural practices, establishing a design company, and ultimately founding a conservation consultancy. The text particularly emphasizes the significance of architectural heritage conservation, highlighting how historical preservation requires balancing authentic context with contemporary needs. Through international projects spanning Europe and Africa, the narrative demonstrates how architectural principles surpass geographical boundaries, while highlighting that cultural heritage serves as a dynamic dialogue between past and present, shaping collective identity and future inspiration. The journey reflects how architecture, like other universal languages, connects different time periods and cultures, leaving lasting testimonies of human achievement and aspirations.
The essay “Architecture of Belonging” explores how architecture in a contemporary globalized context can remain rooted in culture, identity, and the emotional experience of a community. Through theoretical concepts such as cultural archetype, third space, semiotics, and cosmotectonics, the essay defends the thesis that belonging is not a style but an ethical act, and architecture is more than a building – it is a spatial expression of shared values, memory, and the spirituality of space. This scientific essay stems from my empirical and theoretical insights with which I developed my architectural practice, first intuitively and later cognitively, as a form of cultural production with two social mandates, one is to be useful and the other, as a communication medium, to promote the cultural and spiritual values of the community in which it is created. I have called the architecture resulting from such a creative process the architecture of belonging and associate it with the Sarajevo school of architecture, whose educational practices were crucial for my formative architectural habitus and for the emergence of those achievements from my opus that I classify under the phrase architecture of belonging, and whose exemplary examples illustrate this essay.
This paper completes a series of essays written by former students of the Sarajevo Architectural Faculty—now dispersed globally and informally forming a Bosnian architectural diaspora. Authored by architect couple Dalila and Semir Zubčević, each on their own professional path in Vienna, this essay offers a reflective and personal exploration rooted in place, memory, and history. Vienna holds a unique significance in Sarajevo’s urban narrative, making it a fitting stage for our reflections. We grew up and were educated in Sarajevo during a time of relative linearity—where history was presented as a singular path and architecture held a respected, almost technocratic role in society. We were not taught to question the world around us. But after relocating to Vienna, just as Austria was stepping into a new European chapter following the fall of the Iron Curtain, we encountered a familiar urban pattern—only on a much grander scale. Our moment of realization came unexpectedly: seated together in an open-air inn in the Vienna Woods, under plum trees with whitewashed trunks, plastic tablecloths, and an enamel ashtray before us—elements eerily familiar from our Bosnian upbringing. That instant evoked a deeper questioning of our cultural identity and architectural heritage. Were these similarities coincidental, or were they traces of a more intricate, shared history? This experience compelled us to dig deeper, to reframe our understanding of heritage—not as a linear, isolated narrative, but as a layered and interconnected one.
The Planning Bus (Planbussen): Problem-, Project-, and Practice-Based Learning and Teaching (P3BL)
In this article, we share our experiences and perspectives from “The Planning Bus (Planbussen)”, a master-level course in local development and planning at our five-year Master of Architecture program (NTNU). We describe how the course came into being and how it relates to other forms of teaching and pedagogy at NTNU’s architecture program. Using what we have chosen to call problem-, project-, and practice-based learning and teaching (P3BL - a further development of problem-based learning, PBL), students experience how to apply theoretical knowledge and competence in real, physical, and site-specific situations (practice). Through fieldwork, students learn to interact with their surroundings and are trained in the use, testing, and development of diverse methods and tools for communicating their discipline and projects. By adopting an open and holistic approach to real-world local issues and unpredictability, we believe students become better prepared for the realities of their future professional practice. At the same time, practical experiences lead to a new understanding of their discipline, education, and potential role as architects and planners. The course allows students to develop projects and solutions to challenges they themselves identify, thereby influencing and helping shape their own education. Using The Planning Bus (Planbussen) as an example, we argue for the potential benefits and value that problem-, project-, and practice-based learning and teaching can bring to higher education and its relevance for society and stakeholders. We also argue that students, through collaboration with residents, can introduce alternative perspectives on sustainability, making the projects more usable and relevant.
The Tools at our Disposal: Architectural Pedagogy in the Face of Calamity
By highlighting a series of formative junctures of Mirna Pedalo’s trajectory as an architectural practitioner, researcher, and scholar, this paper explores what methodological framework, tools, and models used in spatial practice and architectural pedagogy can assist us in generating a milieu founded on principles of social, spatial, and environmental justice. The threat of climate breakdown, further aggravated by the proliferation of violence and conflicts across the globe, has created an urgency to (re)think how architecture and related disciplines are taught and practiced. With a particular focus on her role as an Architecture and Design Studio Tutor at the School of Architecture, Royal College of Art in London, UK and one of the core members of the Architects for Gaza collective, Pedalo aims to posit architectural pedagogy as a form of practice in itself. Such practice, when enacted in accordance with the above-mentioned principles, can equip the current and future generation of architects with forms of knowledge that can help resist and reshape the power-relations which have disenfranchised and oppressed certain populations and other-than-human forms of life.
This paper features a personal summary of inherited and en-route acquired experiences along the particular trajectory of Ademir Volić’s career. It seeks to further examine the fundamental question of choice in choosing the appropriate path to "creative freedom" regardless of context. Today, the context is one of unprecedented global geopolitical changes, pressing planetary sustainability issues, and, within the architectural sphere, the ongoing essential debate regarding the societal roles of urban planning and architecture and their consequences. What follows is a transition from hypothetical scenarios to lived reality.
In this story, Aida Bratović explores the historical influences of growing up in Sarajevo on her work and career in the UK and worldwide. This paper reflects on how beauty and tradition, with the incorporation of modern needs, shapes contemporary projects. Her work is inspired by cultural heritage, history and a private story. Displacement, whether due to conflict, economic necessity, or personal choice, profoundly impacts professional development. Her journey exemplifies how displacement can serve as both challenge and catalyst for innovation in architectural practice. Bratović’s design philosophy is rooted in storytelling and personal experience, merging heirlooms and salvaged artefacts with contemporary forms to create emotionally resonant spaces. Drawing from architectural phenomenology, she sees design as an expression of memory, place, and human experience. Her interiors often juxtapose old and new in ways that seem spontaneous, yet are deeply intentional. The result is an architecture that not only functions, but speaks — telling stories of resilience, identity, and cultural continuity.
In this essay, the author, architect Mladen Jadric, explores the multilayered relationship between architectural education and practice through a personal narrative shaped in Sarajevo and articulated via international experiences, with a special focus on China, Korea, Japan and Asia in general. Reflections on Sarajevo’s bridges as intersections of narrative and space unfold into a broader discussion of architecture as a medium of expression and social responsibility. The author recalls his studies at the Sarajevo Faculty of Architecture, where fiction, technique, and culture converged into a distinctive pedagogical and professional approach. Inspiration is drawn from Marco Polo’s dialogues with Kublai Khan in Calvino’s Invisible Cities, interwoven with the author’s architectural projects in the culturally rich city of Hangzhou. The design of bridges for the ASIAD 2022 project exemplifies a synthesis of public space, identity, and contemporary urbanism. These bridges, designed by austrian-chinese team are not merely physical structures, but extensions of social currents—spaces of encounter and reflection. The text emphasizes lifelong learning and cross-cultural dialogue in architecture, recognizing architectural practice as a means to shape a more equitable society. Ultimately, it underscores the importance of local context and narrative as foundations for globally relevant architectural engagement.