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Overall view of model |
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Model views |
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Site Diagram- self-avoiding space-filling curves applied to site |
Sarajevo University Campus
Sarajevo, Bosnia-Hercegovina, 2000
Competition entry, in collaboration with Yann Coulouarn, France
In April of 1992 Sarajevo was held under a siege that would last for the next three years, leaving
much of the city damaged or destroyed. One of these devastated areas became the site for a competition
held in 2000 to design a new campus for Sarajevo University.
The project for the Sarajevo University Campus subjects the typology of the campus to reinvigorated site
integration and planning concepts. Rather than pursuing a scheme of arranging discrete objects in a field,
the project begins by accepting the scale of its programmatic and F.A.R. ambitions and then attempting to
create something both collossal and cozy. Site influences coupled with the adaptation of a class of
Self-Avoiding Space-Filling curves generate the possibility of creating two directional modes, one oriented
band-like and running parallel to dominant site elements, another operating transversally, providing the
sectional clearance and spatial cross-connection necessary for both modes to modulate with greater degrees
of freedom. The characteristics imparted by these modes yield dual readings, curved at larger regions, and
flat at local regions- spaces and forms react to these modulations to furnish a variety of architectural and
landscape opportunities.
Paradoxically, the following conditions during the siege suggested some positive ways to begin thinking about
the project. 1) A network of contiguous spaces and supply routes was formed to protect civilians from sniper
fire. 2) Spaces were constantly modified to adapt to immediate necessities, requiring an opportunistic approach
to the available architectural situation. Such accelerated adaptive reuse became a source of inventive strategies
to deal with scarcity: gardens were created anyplace where there was space and light, recycling became routine,
solar cells and makeshift batteries provided micro-power solutions when the electricity was cut off. 3.) The
necessity of camouflage encouraged a disconnection between a building's form and its function. 4) The aggregate
effect of these conditions created a vast yet ambiguously bounded architectural totality.
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Overall view of model |
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Model views |
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Site Diagram- self-avoiding space-filling curves applied to site |