An instantly recognisable image seems to be tantamount to a good architectural story today. It is the image, after all, that holds our attention. In this case, that image is of a bright patchwork facade gleaming in the sun, set against an undulating green landscape. This facade, modish in its reinterpretation of local traditional textiles, conceals an otherwise homely—almost practical—but quite tasteful interior setting. The second, arguably more desirable characteristic for a good story is the almost mythic conception of an architecture that transcends imposed hierarchies, one that does not prescribe but instead listens to, lives and grows with and within the people who occupy it. It offers a collaborative space that enhances a sense of community. The striking design for the House for Five Women in Gradačac, a small town in Bosnia and Herzegovina, boasts all these traits, resolving its formal morphology with an equally informal and adaptable programme.

The residential design was first conceived by a Bosnian activist, Hazima Smajlović, as a sanctuary for women who have escaped the brutality of war, violence and social injustice, a scheme especially compelling for Bosnia, a country marred by sociopolitical upheaval.  Devastated by the war in the 1990s, the Balkan country continues to grapple with a steadily declining population owing to old age and economic migration, which has resulted in the disintegration of social infrastructure. It’s this lack that the housing hopes to address. The House for Five Women—designed by Serbia and Switzerland-based architecture studio TEN, in collaboration with the NGOs Engineers Without Borders and Vive Žene, the municipality of Gradačac and other individual contributors over the course of eight years—is envisioned as a bulwark: providing both temporary accommodation and social facilities to its inhabitants.

For Smajlović, more than the structure itself, crafting an appropriate social programme for these women was vital. Through architecture, she hoped to harbour a community that mutually supports each other—a hub for women to collaboratively learn new skills while also earning a livelihood. Addressing this, on the piece of land that Smajlović owns (on which the building currently stands), the project team laid agricultural plots for future residents to be able to grow and sell produce and manufacture artisanal jams and preserves. And while seemingly a secondary consideration, the manifestation of the House for Five Women presents a unique typology that is forbearing in its expansiveness, and quite unlike anything in its context. Lukas Burkhart, one of the members of the architecture and research association, shares with STIR, "It’s not that we tried to build a 'Bosnian' house—we think the outcome is one of an unforeseeable and complex process that was 'allowed or encouraged' rather than top-down planned." The goal, as Burkhart notes, was always to be "influenced by [the region’s] territory and people" but not to imitate. The overall result is a structure that prioritises adaptability over fixity, abandoning any notions of control exercised by design or even a state of ‘completion’ for the house.

Sidestepping the fixed delineations of typology or specific functional considerations, the project text instead makes it a point to highlight the collaborations fostered by the programme and the intrinsic role they played in the realisation of the house. As TEN notes in the project literature, the design process took off with a comprehensive understanding of the building requirements and the resources available for its construction. "Design inherently involves making preferable choices, and these actions that shape reality are also shaped by the evolving dynamic and context," the team states, submitting to a degree of openness and unpredictability that feels refreshing and, in this case, only apt. This openness further translated into an approach that involved close teamwork with local artisans, metalworkers, carpenters, car painters and carpet repairers for the building’s construction. Apart from local contractors and skilled workers, TEN lists the artist Shirana Shahbazi (who designed the facade) and landscape architect Daniel Ganz as active participants in the overall design process. It’s rare to see such varied partnerships—across both scale and disciplines—as part of the architectural story. Though for TEN, who think of architecture as a social act, it is the story itself.

Burkhart underscores this spirit of cooperation, noting, "The basis of this project is a collaboration across nations and cultures, personal histories and professions. I would say all actors involved contributed as professionals but also as simple citizens/humans." Elaborating further on the vitality of a transparent process in determining the final (or in this case, one final) form of the residential architecture, he continues, "It was done without a fixed masterplan/diagram of roles, but within a framework of common goals and values. [So] we spent a lot of time bringing people together and listening to what they had to say." The building which emerges from this fertile exchange is quite succinct, accommodating five spacious rooms connected to one large, natural light-filled common area for its inhabitants. For the architects, as for Smajlović, the ultimate goal for the building was to engender an architecture of care in order to encourage residents to meaningfully inhabit and adapt to the space. To make a home for women who’ve been deprived of one. But nominal government support presented its own challenges, with resources and funds being donated, gathered and scrounged together over eight years.

"When we designed the building, it was not clear who would inhabit it. [So] it was important to keep it open—first because its finalisation was hard to plan due to legal reasons and fundraising (Hazima and the NGO did not want to make promises that were hard to keep). But also because it was always thought to be a house that needs to be flexible enough to serve people with very different biographies and circumstances of life," Burkhart reveals, highlighting how funding played a crucial role in determining the project’s outcome. Elaborating on how the uncertainty of resource allocation informed design decisions, Burkhart continues, “It enabled us to react to ‘accidental’ qualities! Certain building parts were donated by companies, for example in the bathroom and kitchens, which required an adaptable design. On the other hand, it also posed some challenges: keeping the thoughts fresh and not letting the project fall asleep definitely required some stamina and a collective motivation. The financial constraints mostly influenced the size and amount of spaces (nothing underground, only the necessary, but with quality and a high flexibility in use). And material and construction methods that were locally available (this ruled out wood construction, for example).”

To ensure that the women residing in the housing block would be comfortable, TEN insisted on a particular Bosnian character for the living spaces. For this, the design team meticulously documented several traditional houses across Bosnia to understand how people live, how they use resources, and their ways of being. The scrap metal used for the facade, for instance, is exactly a response to this documentation. Still, there is a touch of contemporariness to the whole affair, evident in the rational planning of the block, and the canny use of glass sliding doors for the common area to separate the inside from the natural landscape. This common living space is meant to echo the concept of traditional south-facing porch areas, the design team notes. The skylights in the interiors, the sleek fixtures and the muted colour palette all point to a more conventional aesthetic.

But as the images reveal, everyday life pervades the interiors. Carpets hang off the walls; there is coffee set out, just in case of visitors; an old LCD TV sits on top of a sleek tiled console, upending the expected image of the ‘perfect’ minimalist interior design. Apart from the private rooms and common living area that ensure both privacy and shared experiences, the designers equipped the different rooms with ample cabinetry and self-contained kitchenettes for a degree of independence. Restricted from creating a basement due to the lack of funds, a 26-metre-long multifunctional room on top of the common area serves various needs — from food storage to hosting additional residents. Constructed as a space truss and concealed by Shahbazi’s vibrant facade, it was inspired by the traditional typology of pastoral storage. “Working with repetition of domestic elements and combining them with design efforts, the project aimed to create a new type of household,” the team elaborates in the project text.

Within this ‘new household’, its inhabitants are thriving, while there have been a few shortcomings, the inevitable result of any design intervention, no matter how well-intentioned. A conversation with Smaljovic has previously observed, the glass facade in the common area makes it too warm in the summer. The attic storage space is perhaps not entirely suited for dry storage. Burkhart also emails me, a few weeks after our initial correspondence, to share updates about the project. As it turns out, owing to their modest intervention, the house now shelters women as well as their children. They’ve built their own playground, he shares. For a project of this nature, it’s only right that the building continues to adapt, to transform with each inhabitation; marking not the end of the process of design, but the beginning of reconfiguration, of a contented life. This much is evident in the images he shares (picturesquely spontaneous as they appear). For the women, the house seems to have become a refuge. As they say, it takes a village.

Project Details

Name: House for Five Women
Location: Gradačac, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Design Team: Ognjen Krašna, Jana Kulić, Aleksanda Bašić, Lukas Burkhart, Nemanja Zimonjić
Collaborators: Hazima Smajlović (Initiator); IngOG+ Switzerland (NGO); Shirana Shahbazi (Artist); Daniel Ganz (Landscape Architect); Dr Miodrag Grbić (Structural Engineer); Bessire Winter GmbH (Architect); Naš Izvor Gradačac, Foundation (Operation and Management); Saturn Trade d.o.o. Gradačac (Construction); HomeDesign factory d.o.o. Gradačac (Interior)
Area: 278 sqm
Year of Completion: 2025