Resilient Futures

This studio came at a pressing time of political instability in Europe. (In 2022-2023) we faced a multitude of planetary crises from which we are approaching a ‘point of no return’.

The war in Ukraine is a reminder that in a continent with over 40 separatist movements, we cannot take peace for granted.

Architects must learn to operate with urgency and appropriate the ‘State of Emergency’ as the rule, and not the exception.

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Sarajevo was our starting point; learning from the extraordinary civilian-lead resistance during The Siege (1992-1996). We aimed to investigate how ordinary civilians and architects overcame scarcity by inventing and up-cycling resourceful, transient, covert and often surreal tools, architectural interventions and urban infrastructures for survival.  

We aimed to explore Sarajevo’s periphery; the vast mountains and forests, derelict industrial sites from the Yugoslav period, unregulated settlements and inter-entity borders. 

Students took part in a two-week workshop on site, working in a fast paced urban environment to research, design, test, and prototype ‘resilient devices’ - small-scale spatial and architectural interventions that tackle current and near-future crises facing the city. These included: the climate emergency, climate migration, air pollution, water supply, political corruption, energy supply and the rise of popular nationalism.  

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They were joined by students from Europe and Bosnia and our studio friends and teachers from the Global Free Unit. These prototypes were to be installed around the city and form the basis of design manifestos for larger architectural projects in Sarajevo or sites of students' own choice.

Students learned experimental mapping, drawing and modelling techniques, and from our scenario drawing game methodology; to investigate, provoke, create and imagine architectures of resilience against the local and global crises facing Sarajevo today, as well as predicting future crises and trends.

Collectively, the studio sought to be an ’Exquisite Corpse’ of possible resilient futures.

Studio tutor