bratunac business centre
TYPE \ Urbanism-Architecture, Commission YEAR \ 2011 LOCATION \ Bratunac, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) STATUS \ Feasibility Study COLLABORATORS \ CASS Projects Office, Anne Markey
Pre-war Bratunac was a thriving manufacturing and agricultural town bordering Serbia, known for large construction material factories. Today one feels a sense of emptiness and tension in the absence of key urban structures and people. PROJECT V were commissioned to carry out a feasibility study for the design of a Business and Vocational Education Centre. This includes a detailed town analysis that lead to early building studies for a centre that aims to instigate reconciliation and reintegration of returnees through promoting local businesses. The participative mapping and design process became a tool to foster a more common understanding of the town’s past and present and to assist a multi-ethnic group of returnees to build a case for reclaiming a plot of contested land between the town hall and a newly re-built mosque. A series of analytical maps, photographs and models recording pre, during and post-war structures reveal historic patterns of development, functionality and destruction. While uncovering new development opportunities, including a dormant brickery and ceramic tile factory, helped to inform materiality and ideas for local employment. Two analytical density models of the town, the Pre-War ‘Brick of Solidarity’ and Post-War 'Brick of Emptiness' represent the physical and psychological effects of recent destruction, while suggesting the renewal and rebranding of one of the largest pre-war ceramic tile factories in the Balkans.