Projects
I’ll probably never stop talking and writing. Even more likely, I’ll never stop talking and writing about architecture.
For this residential project, the client brought to our first meeting a sketch showing the plot size, a handful of impressions from her travels through the Maghreb and the Middle East, and memories of the Mostar she remembers. The inheritance her mother left her wasn’t something she wanted to hand over to interest groups and lobbies — instead, she invested serious energy to keep what rightfully belonged to her. And, along with completing the project, to give something back to the city on the Neretva.
Architecture isn’t made of glass walls rising above cities, nor is it about personal interpretations of neighboring “pink poses” trying to leave a mark in the pattern of Mostar near the best šampite. In the end, that would only disfigure the spirit of the place.
It’s been a long time since I’ve awaited the first renders of a project with such anticipation. And yes, they’re good. The house is good. On a completely narrow site — bordered on one side by non-architecture, on the other by nothing, with a view to nowhere — we created the best possible outcome.
We kept the stone base, breathed in the scent of travel and the colors of the East into its openings, its face, and opened and greened the roof to fit the measure of some coming, unseen Mostar heatwaves.
I could add another word or two, a line or a paragraph, but enough. This house in Mostar will be called Đula.
Let it stay this way forever. And let it be Đula.
