Most Mira Peace Centre - Architectutre for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Most Mira Peace Centre fosters sustainable peace in war-torn Prijedor and Bosnia & Herzegovina, transforming a ruined site between two divided villages into a vibrant destination for arts and reconciliation. Since 2009, Most Mira bring together thousands of young people of all ethnicities through creative peacebuilding programs. Designed through educational participatory workshops with the community, this sustainable rammed earth Peace Centre will be a permanent home for year-round activities.
Local
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Prijedor
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organization, in partnership with other organisations
Name of the organisation(s): Projekt V Arhitektura Type of organisation: For-profit company First name of representative: Vernes Last name of representative: Causevic Gender: Male Nationality: Bosnia and Herzegovina If relevant, please select your other nationality: United Kingdom Function: Director Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Kralja Tvrtka 5 Town: Sarajevo Postal code: 71000 Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina Direct Tel:+387 62 959 234 E-mail:info@projectv-arch.com Website:https://projectv-arch.com/
Name of the organisation(s): Most Mira Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Kemal Last name of representative: Pervanic Gender: Male Nationality: Bosnia and Herzegovina If relevant, please select your other nationality: United Kingdom Function: President Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Kevljani 114 Town: Prijedor Postal code: 79000 Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina Direct Tel:+387 65 230-714 E-mail:kemal.pervanic@mostmira.onmicrosoft.com Website:https://www.mostmiraproject.org/
The Most Mira Peace Centre initiative fosters sustainable peace in ethnically divided communities in war-torn Prijedor and Bosnia & Herzegovina (B&H). Since 2009 grassroots charity Most Mira are bringing together thousands of young people from across ethnic divides through arts, theatre, history and sustainable architecture programs, delivered in a participatory way in which young people work together to design and make Peace and become leaders in their community.
Since 2014 we are building a community through the Most Mira Peace Centre, which transforms a symbolic ruined house that sits between two ethnically divided villages near the former Omarska concentration camp, into a shared safe space and destination for year-round arts and reconciliation activities. The project is designed through a holistic participatory educational workshop program - ‘Architecture for Peace’, working closely with the community and students from B&H, Europe and beyond.
The Peace Centre will be built using locally sourced carbon-neutral rammed earth, and other environmentally sustainable materials, working with global experts through ‘hands-on’ training workshops. This will teach new skills and create employment. The process of mixing earth from neighbouring divided communities symbolises rebuilding a multi-ethnic society. The Centre will be run like a co-operative and develop circular social enterprises.
Planned for construction this year, this is the first sustainable peace centre in the Western Balkans. With growing social and political tensions in B&H and Western Balkans, and ongoing War in Ukraine, this grassroots community initiative, aimed also at mitigating conflict, is of vital importance. This is a transferrable model for other post-war contexts, which could become a framework of Peace Centre’s across the region and Europe.
This project won the LafargeHolcim European Silver Award for Sustainable Construction (2021) with a prize of $50,000 to help towards fundraising.
Peacebuilding
Youth
Community
Architecture
Sustainability
Our mission is to foster sustainable peace in ethnically divided communities across war-torn Prijedor and Bosnia & Herzegovina. Our key objectives are:
1. Social Cohesion - Providing a safe shared space to tackle ethnic segregation.
Youth live in divided communities, study in segregated schools and have no shared space to meet. Since 2009 Most Mira are delivering creative educational peacebuilding programs, bringing together youth of all ethnicities. Since 2014 we are building community through the holistic Most Mira Peace Centre initiative and participatory architectural process. The Peace Centre will create a permanent shared space for year-round activities and socialisation.
2. Economic Sustainability - Providing creative and professional opportunities for youth.
We provide education, leadership opportunities and ‘hands on’ experience to combat unemployment. The Centre will be built using local materials, with international experts through on-site training workshops. Teach new skills, create jobs and circular economies. The Centre will employ permanent staff, be financially sustainable after three years and be run like a co-operative funded in four ways: 1. arts, theatre, peace-building programs and ticket sales, 2. rental income. 3. academic visits for international universities, 4. sustainable social enterprises.
3. Environmental Sustainability - Building a low-carbon environmentally sustainable Peace Centre.
Using local rammed earth (RE), and other sustainable materials. Benefits of RE include: carbon-neutral, good thermal mass and using recycled waste materials loam and clay from local quarries and mines. Other sustainable elements include: reusing an existing ruin, wood fibre insulation, clay plaster, triple glazed timber joinery, green roof, air-air heat pump and rainwater collection.
Sustainable peace-building takes generations. Our participatory educational 'hands-on' approach builds capacity and local expertise and creates future leaders.
Most Mira Peace Centre transforms a site that carries the traumatic memory of war into a positive space for peacebuilding, located on neutral territory between two divided villages: Petrov Gaj (Serb) and Kevljani (Muslim). In 1992, villagers from Kevljani were rounded up at this site and taken to the Omarska concentration camp, where hundreds were killed. Most Mira have transformed this symbolic site, and ruined house, into a positive safe space for young people of all ethnicities. A colourful mural made with local youth inspired us to keep parts of the ruin as a 'canvas' for changeable stage settings, and transform the house into a central public courtyard and outdoor theatre.
Using Rammed Earth (RE) as a symbol for peace, new RE structures are built around the courtyard as if engaged in a conversation. The modern RE technique reinvents a disappearing local heritage of building with earth, shared by all ethnic groups. The process of mixing clay from Kevljani with earth from local quarries and mines in neighbouring ethnically divided communities symbolises rebuilding a multi-ethnic society. The visual quality and texture of RE has a familiarity that bridges ethnic divides, inspires dialogue and has a healing quality.
Other natural local materials; including clay, timber and recyclable materials for interior finishes and furnishings will be developed on site as experiments and social enterprise products, reinventing the aesthetics of sustainable natural materials in the Western Balkans. This promotes local production and a more ethical and sustainable construction and material culture in B&H. This also improves wellbeing, by using breathable materials that regulate air quality internally for people. Generous spaces open to all are filled with daylight and frame views of the landscape, while providing facilities and functions for cultural activity.
This is an architecture for psychological and physical healing, which is necessary after war and trauma.
Most Mira are based in rural Prijedor (Republika Srpska entity), an area heavily affected by the Bosnian War. A large returnee community remains marginalised and neighbouring communities are divided along ethnic lines. Young people attend ethnically segregated schools, where they learn different versions of history and have no shared space to meet each other.
Most Mira means ‘Bridge of Peace’. Social inclusion is a key objective. Most Mira is an independent neutral organisation, providing a safe shared space to tackle ethnic segregation, and build common ground amongst young people of all ethnicities. Our creative programs enable youth to overcome continuing divisions to build a more inclusive and peaceful society, while providing access to high quality European standard education, open to all citizens including returnee communities. Most Mira programs, including Architecture for Peace, are affordable and often fully funded for students from Prijedor and B&H.
The Most Mira Peace Centre initiative is designed and built through an inclusive participatory process, involving youth and the community, students of architecture and professionals from Bosniac, Bosnian-Serb, Bosnian-Croat and Other backgrounds at each stage of development, working with European students and professionals. This democratic process is open to people of all ages and backgrounds, incorporating needs of the whole community and resulting in cross-generational dialogue. The construction site is also envisaged as an intergenerational community forum for peace-building, including a multi-ethnic team of craftspeople.
Located on neutral territory between divided communities, the Peace Centre will create a permanent shared space, open to all, for year-round activities and socialisation. The Peace Centre is designed to be accessible to people with all physical abilities. This includes integrated ramped access, accessible WC with shower and designated space at ground level for accommodation.
Most Mira has brought together 1800+ young people, teachers, parents and volunteers of all ethnicities through festivals and educational peacebuilding programs in arts, theatre, history and architecture. These participatory programs empower young people to work together and take ownership of the creative process. Past participants become facilitators and community leaders. We work with divided schools in Prijedor, build trust with institutions, provide alternative models for education, and inspire teachers and youth to develop a culture of cooperation and improve the education system. Our showcases attract large audiences and expand dialogue. We collaborate with activists and civil society groups and build capacity.
A key component of the Most Mira Peace Centre is community building. We use architecture to build a framework for reconciliation through a holistic participatory educational program - ‘Architecture for Peace’. Through on-site design and building workshops, we bring together hundreds of local students, professors, professionals, youth, and residents from across ethnic divides, with EU and global students and experts. In 2015 we brought together architecture students from Banja Luka and Sarajevo faculties for the first time since the war. Some became workshop facilitators and were inspired to continue their architectural education in the EU. The Centre will be built with global rammed earth experts, through on-site workshops. Our Architecture for Peace summer school is one of the only alternative European standard educational platforms for sustainable architecture in B&H, which we are developing as a social enterprise for B&H, EU & global students & citizens to learn post-war reconstruction and reconciliation 'hands-on'.
Once built, the Centre will be open to the public and have a flexible 50 seat theatre, arts studio, craft workshop, dormitory’s for 14 visitors and wifi, and will enable youth and civil society groups to develop their own projects.
Most Mira B&H trustees Meliha Solakovic, Azra Jakupovic and Kemal Pervanic are concentration camp survivors, working with a team of UK trustees. Funders include private donors, Sigrid Rausing Trust and National Endowment for Democracy. Kemal Pervanic is ED and project manager. We engage young professionals to lead workshops. Most facilitators are local, including former participants. Local schools, pupils and teachers from divided communities are engaged through our theatre project; teachers act as facilitators cultivating cooperation. We engage this audience in Peace Centre workshops. Each year RS Education Ministry grants us permits to work with schools, in a highly sensitive political climate. City Council grant us free use of Prijedor Theatre for plays. Our Project on Peacebuilding engages students from all social and ethnic backgrounds and academic levels, through which we work with local (KVART) & national level NGOs (forum ZFD).
The Most Mira Peace Centre design is led by Vernes Causevic and Projekt V Arhitektura (Lead Architect and Design PM), through:
1) The Architecture for Peace program, which engages students and professionals from diverse backgrounds from B&H & Europe through hands-on participatory design and building workshop with the community. Supported by Prof. Robert Mull, Global Free Unit and Umea University (Sweden).
2) The Peace Centre Building Project engages Most Mira trustees (Client Team) and the Design Team to procure and design the Centre, involving local architects and engineers from Sarajevo & Banja Luka, consultations and on-site training with global rammed earth experts Lehm Ton Erde (Austria). This involved RS Materials Institute, testing and developing the rammed earth design to RS building regulations. We received outline planning permission, utilities approvals and fire certificate from City Council. A licensed RS firm audited the project and recommended it for approval. We submitted building permit application (Dec. 2022).
Most Mira take a practical approach to peacebuilding, listen to local people and identify their needs. Our team, made up of Peace Builders from various disciplines and backgrounds, use an inclusive and participatory approach to empower young people to take ownership of the creative process and work together to design, make and perform peace, not just talk about it.
We treat young people and residents as local experts, linking place-specific knowledge with professional knowledge non-hierarchically, while building capacity and local expertise for the future. This is new in a post-communist society where open respect for authorities is expected.
The Most Mira Peace Centre combines fields of Peacebuilding and Architecture with many others. The team includes a range of creative and technical disciplines and knowledge fields: human rights activists, political scientists, historians, academics, artists, youth workers, teachers, architects, urbanists, earth builders, sustainable construction experts, engineers, craftspeople and others.
Our participatory approach involves all multidisciplinary actors and a growing community of end-users in the design and implementation of the initiative, exchanging knowledge and expertise in a democratic way, through:
1) The 'Architecture for Peace' on-site workshop program; where the team interact with students, youth, end-users and the community through consultations, planning, design and building.
2) This knowledge is fed into the professional structure of the building project; through design development with: client, architects, engineers and sustainable construction experts.
3) The construction site is envisaged as an interdisciplinary, intergenerational community forum for peacebuilding, which will be delivered through a series of on-site residencies, including expert lectures and international dialogue.
This ensures both community needs and technical requirements are met, enriching the design and decision making.
Peacebuilding at the community level requires innovative approaches. Most Mira work within rural communities effected by war to develop practical, hands-on approaches, as opposed to most transitional justice NGO's that implement theories.
We train local and national facilitators to deliver creative, inclusive and participatory peacebuilding workshops through arts, theatre, history and architecture. This empowers young people to take ownership of the creative process, become leaders and builds capacity for the future.
Working collaboratively to design, make and perform tangible artistic creations with young people depoliticises the peace process, in which peacebuilding is an designed byproduct that also impacts their families, peers and communities.
Through a democratic participatory approach, participants view facilitators as creative partners. This is new in a post-communist society where open respect for authorities is expected.
The Most Mira Peace Centre initiative is a framework for reconciliation that combines fields of peacebuilding and architecture. Led by young Bosnian architects with an inherent understanding of the place, working with international collaborators, we are decolonising post-war reconciliation.
Our holistic participatory methodology and Architecture for Peace workshop program foregrounds community engagement, through interactive tools and exhibitions that democratise design.
Using carbon-neutral rammed earth technology will reinvent local earth-building traditions. This innovative sustainable technique is a slow and performative process that will turn the building site into a forum for sustainability, peacebuilding activities and dialogue.
Sustainable peacebuilding requires a slow and considered process for lasting impact at the community level. In over 13 years, Most Mira’s longevity has had a significant positive impact in the community and beyond. This approach to ‘slowness’ and persistence is unique in this context.
Most Mira has developed a range of community-based participatory peacebuilding programs in the arts, theatre, sustainable architecture and history. This breadth gives flexibility in extrapolating knowledge to others, in many fields, contexts and communities.
The Peace Centre initiative uses a holistic community-based participatory methodology for sustainable reconstruction and peacebuilding through sustainable architecture. This is an inclusive, slow, place-specific approach, which can be transferred to respond to other places and communities, especially in post-war contexts.
The Architecture for Peace workshop and summer school program is transferable to educational Institutions globally - training the next generation of practitioners working in sustainable reconstruction in post-war contexts.
The technology and knowledge of rammed earth construction can be taught, upscaled and replicated in many contexts. This is a training opportunity in the region.
The Centre will be a hub for social enterprises, creating sustainable programs and natural material products to create long term sustainability. These can also benefit and be replicated in other communities.
The Most Mira Peace Centre is designed as a transferrable model for other socially unstable or post-war contexts; including the participatory design methodology, knowledge, building products and technology. This could be developed into a framework of Peace Centre’s across Western Balkans and Europe. Knowledge gained will be documented and published as a global resource.
Knowledge transfer to other conflict and post-conflict places has begun through lectures by Most Mira and Projekt V Arhitektura, and inclusion in academic articles. The Architecture for Peace summer school 2023 will involve Ukrainian students and teachers from Kharkiv School of Architecture. In Autumn 2022, the initiative was presented at the ‘Architecture on Stage: In The Fog of War’ event at The Barbican, to support Ukraine.
The initiative employs a participatory methodology designed to empower young people to take ownership of the creative process and work together to design and make peace, which builds local skills and capacity.
The initiative is led by young Bosnian architects through a holistic democratic design process and educational programme called 'Architecture for Peace’; a series of on-site planning, design and building workshops and consultations with students, professionals, youth and the community.
An interactive travelling exhibition, produced with Bosnia and EU students provides a framework for community consultations to show mapping, drawings, models, rammed earth demonstrations. Prior to design work the team worked for a year carrying out research and consultations in the field.
Local knowledge is fed back into the professional structure of the building project, which is ongoing back-stage. We co-ordinate technical requirements with community needs at each design stage.
We work with global rammed earth experts (Austria), through technical design consultations, materials sampling workshops, and on-site prototyping. They provide training to local builders, architects and students. The slow and performative process turns the building site into a forum for peace-building, to include on-site lectures promoting regional and European dialogue.
The Architecture for Peace summer school program is being developed as a social enterprise with the Global Free Unit, supported by Umea University (Sweden). This program runs before, during and after construction. Students collaboratively design and prototype sustainable building components, materials and furniture for the Centre, as well as developing a wider reconciliation strategy of small-scale interventions and social enterprises in the divided communities around the Peace Centre.
A slow and considered approach to community building has a lasting impact. The process is a real-time performance in peace-building.
The Most Mira Peace Centre initiative addresses a number of global challenges, such as: Sustainable Development, Climate Change, Peace, Conflict and Education, which align to UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 16, 13 and 4 and the European Competence Framework on Sustainability.
In a time of increasing social and political tensions in B&H and Western Balkans, made more acute by the broader geopolitical environment and ongoing war in Ukraine, grass-roots peacebuilding projects such as Most Mira, aimed also at mitigating conflict, are of vital importance.
Peace and Youth is integral to tackling the climate crisis. This initiative combines sustainable architecture with peacebuilding; empowering young citizens and architects to create socially and environmentally resilient ways of living together, in the context of a segregated society. Producing sustainable local solutions and lessons that can have a much wider application in other post-conflict countries.
The initiative uses carbon neutral rammed earth technology and other environmentally sustainable and energy efficient solutions, fostering a more sustainable construction industry in the region. It addresses the economic crisis and displacement by developing local low-cost solutions and circular social enterprises and employment opportunities, creating conditions for people to stay in B&H and return sustainably.
The initiative leaders are young Bosnians and 'returnee' experts, addressing decolonising post-war reconstruction.
The initiative addresses a need for more sustainable education models in architecture and (re)construction through the Architecture for Peace summer school, which in 2023 will bring together students from B&H, Europe, Ukraine & other conflict & post-conflict places.
The initiative was presented at the ‘Architecture on Stage: In The Fog of War’ Architecture Foundation event at the Barbican Centre in Autumn 2022, providing lessons to support Ukraine through & beyond the war.
Since 2009 Most Mira brought together 1800+ young people from across ethnic divides through 3 festivals and 21 educational peacebuilding programs in arts, theatre, sustainable architecture and history. Opened dialogue between youth and helped overcome tensions, while bringing the world to rural Prijedor. Since 2014 the Most Mira Peace Centre involved 100+ students, professionals, youth and citizens of all ethnicities from Prijedor, B&H and beyond, through 11 'hands-on' design and build workshops, to learn and work together, indirectly involving 300+ people through public events. Key progress highlights:
2016-2022: Raised over 200,000 Eur.
2015: workshop bringing together architecture students from Sarajevo and Banja Luka faculties for the first time since the war.
2016: outline planning permission, renewed in 2020.
2016-2017: rammed earth material sampling and prototyping workshops on site with Lehm Ton Erde; training architects, engineers and students from B&H and EU.
2018: Collegium Artisticum 2018 National Architecture Award.
2020: preliminary construction works; inter-ethnic cross-generational peace dialogue on site with craftspeople from across B&H.
2021: LafargeHolcim European Silver Award for Sustainable Construction with $50,000 prize.
2022: First ECTS credited Architecture for Peace 2-week summer course for B&H & EU students with Global Free Unit & Umea University (Sweden).
2022: Licensed RS firm audited and recommended design for approval.
Dec. 2022: Submitted detailed design for building permit. Awaiting approval from Council.
Outline plan for 2023-2024:
1) Building permit (Feb 2023).
2) Tender, appoint building contractor (March 2023).
3) Complete fundraising for shell & core (April 2023).
4) Construction of shell & core (May-Dec 2023).
5) On-site Architecture for Peace workshops (June-Sept 2023).
6) Fundraising for interior fit-out (April-Dec 2023).
7) Construction of interior fit-out (Dec 2023-April 2024).
8) Opening (May 2024).
The key objectives of Most Mira are not limited to our workshops on peacebuilding with groups from different ethnic communities in the specific context of the Prijedor area or, indeed, B&H, but include broader aspects of sustainability. They align with the principles of the ‘European Competence Framework on Sustainability’ and include: 1) the development of greater social cohesion and grass-roots peacebuilding; 2) economic sustainability and providing participants and stakeholders with the knowledge and practical skills of sustainability, in terms of social cohesion, the environment, the economy and, more broadly, society and; 3) environmental sustainability and education is integral in those processes through the construction of the low-carbon Most Mira Peace Centre, through which we equip participants with the education and training to apply in their specific fields.
The relationships we forge with our learners, educators and professional advisors are not time-limited, but rather an ongoing relationship in which we will, collectively, meet these objectives through engagement, education and training in myriad areas of sustainability and the serious climate risks that world faces today. We create supportive learning environments for sustainability that span all our activities and operations and enable teaching and learning that is hands-on, interdisciplinary and relevant to the local context. As part of this work, we also engage with pressing global challenges and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a core part of our educational provision, informing our learners about how these impact upon us all and encouraging them to act positively to meet the demands of these broader challenges while also providing learning opportunities and practical experience for young people from B&H and beyond.
The Most Mira Peace Centre is an exemplary model for the green transition and sustainable development in B&H and Western Balkans.
