New to the department – Dijana Vučinić
Dijana Vučinić is a practicing architect, researcher and founder of an interdisciplinary architectural practice DVARP with projects that range from urban design via design of public spaces, hotels and residential buildings to stage design. In her work she tends to introduce structures and spaces that reveal the process of critical thinking and sustainable solutions. Her work is based on research on post-transitional city narratives and interactive contemporary city ambience as well as urban and rural conditions in the developing rural areas at the Montenegrin coast and in the mountains.
Vučinić is founder and program director of APSS Institute, a platform for architectural research and design thinking and development, whose most prominent initiative has been KotorAPSS Summer School established in the coastal town of Kotor, Montenegro. For many years KotorAPSS has focused on the RE-USE method and the work did as part of Institute’s work have resulted in the creation of many international projects.
She was commissioner for Project Solana – Montenegrin pavilion at XV Venice Architecture Biennale in 2016 and co-curator and co-author of the exhibition Treasures in disguise – Montenegro Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia in 2014. Vučinić’s work has been recognized internationally, within networks of architects, designers and educators with whom she has been working closely on various projects. Her work was prized with numerous awards both at home and abroad. She was awarded Architectural Visionary of the year in SE Europe by Zavod Big in Ljubljana.
Dijana Vučinić co-curated the exhibition Skirting the Center: Svetlana Kana Radević, On the Periphery of Postwar Architecture as part of XVIII La Biennale di Venezia.
About the course
While centering around post-military abandoned structures the studio work will rethink rehabilitation and reprogramming of these buildings while at the same time focusing on fragile ecosystem of Adriatic basin where we base our topic. In this work we will look for hidden narratives, investigate sensory experience and study species in order to create scenarios that could foresee the future of coexistence in the Adriatic.
Research projects:
https://www.kotorapss.me
https://kanaradevic.me
https://dvarp.me/kotor-apss-2018/
https://dvarp.me/kotorapss-2017-temporary-exhibition-opening/
https://projectsolana.com/project-solana/
https://dvarp.me/treasures-in-disguise-la-biennale-di-venezia-2014/
After Céline Baumann, Madeleine Kessler and Vesna Jovanović, Dijana Vučinić is the fourth of four guest professors of the Wüstenrot Foundation who, from the winter semester 2021/22 to the summer semester 2023, will complement the courses offered in the Master's program in Architecture for one semester each by making relevant and responsible contributions to the major societal challenges for building in the present and the future.
They will address issues of climate change and its ecological as well as socio-economic consequences for the built environment, the energy transition with regard to the renovation of existing buildings and building culture, the scarcity of resources and the circular economy, digitalization and its opportunities for new construction production, but also questions of rapid global urbanization, the advancing demographic - and employment-related change and its impact on the planning of new living environments and spaces.