A conversation with Blaž Budja and Rok Jereb, founders of Jereb in Budja Arhitekti

The next “word of the week” should be moderation

Jereb and Budja Arhitekti was founded in 2007 by Rok Jereb and Blaž Budja, who were later joined by Nina Majoranc Peršin. They are one of the most interesting Slovenian architectural practices at the moment. In their wide range of projects, they have designed everything from housing – including temporary housing and housing for vulnerable users – and industrial buildings to bridges. They say that most of their commissions are extensions, sometimes even additions to extensions. Their work is characterised by the enthusiasm and optimism with which they approach each task, approaching it with sensitivity to the user’s needs and respect for the space.

Their distinctive approach has been nationally and internationally recognised and rewarded, with numerous awards, including the Plečnik Medal and Award, Golden Pencil Award, a nomination for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award, and the Prešeren Fund Prize.
We were going to talk about sustainability in architecture, but our conversation soon got into much more interesting waters.

How do you understand the profession of architect today?

Blaž Budja (BB): The profession of architecture allows you to be creative and productive: through building commissions you can pursue the values you believe in, in order to create a world you want to live in. As architects, we have the knowledge and vision to help people, but that’s about it. Architecture is not in the capacity to teach, but to serve.
Rok Jereb (RJ): To pursue architecture means to discover things and to make them possible. By asking the right questions, you often help the client to discover what they already want. When you get to the point where both sides agree, you are on the right track. We never allow ourselves to tell the client that something has to be done in a certain way just because we architects said so.
BB: Now that our hair is greyer and we have more mileage on the odometer, we know that we can’t please everybody. An architectural project is always evolving, and if one feels comfortable in the process, things flow easier and better, and the results are better. It has happened that we’ve forced ourselves to walk away from a project because we couldn’t find common ground with the clients, because we saw that we couldn’t do the best job. Of course, I don’t mean “best” in the sense of winning some world championship in architecture, but in the sense of a good architectural response to the context of the project.

Architecture is also collaborative, multidisciplinary.

RJ: Yes, and as architects we like to see ourselves as the ones who can make everything fit together. We combine various forms of knowledge, and so we have to keep our ears open, keep educating ourselves. Through collaboration we have learned that the gap between design and execution doesn’t have to be as dramatic as the architectural community sometimes wants to portray it to be. As architects, we have to admit that we are no longer the main agents of change, that we no longer have that power.
BB: Just as there are no more polymaths in science, there are no more polymaths in architecture, like our role models from the recent past. I think the answer is respect and moderation.
RJ: A project that really changed me personally, in the sense that I’d certainly be different if we hadn’t worked on it, was a project for a retirement home early in our career, the extension of Šmarje pri Jelšah retirement home, which was completed in 2010. That kind of project, that experience, opens your eyes and makes you brutally aware of what’s ahead of us all. And as an architect it makes you think about how you can make ageing more humane, also through architecture, through your profession.

When a building is handed over to the users it’s far from completed, and from that moment on architecture assumes a life of its own.

BB: You can think of architecture as a service, in which case the finished project is the product. We have always tried to put our whole selves into our projects, and that’s why they continue to live with us. For example, even after twelve years we are still called in for architectural maintenance of the Stopiče Sports Hall. The friendships, the connections with the people involved in the project have remained. I believe this is proof that we really took this project seriously. With good faith, enthusiasm and a respectful attitude, we have managed to live on with this kind of architecture.
RJ: And that’s why clients come back to us asking us to fix something, to adapt something. Private clients, who are not limited by public tenders, like to come back to us with commissions. And the public clients invite us to compete in tenders. Then we get some projects, others we don’t. In Slovenia participating to tenders is a gamble, where the author’s approach and the quality of the architectural solution mean very little, only the lowest price counts, and sometimes it’s difficult to compete like that.

One of the clients you keep coming back to is TEM Čatež, for whom you have designed several buildings, and your cooperation has been going on for a few years now.

BB: It’s not really that it’s been so many years, but rather they’re very active and quick to build. We’ve recently completed the last part of a collaboration, TEM 3.0. On the one hand, there’s nothing more to build, because the factory site no longer has any space left. But the main reason why the collaboration may now have come to an end is that Andrej Bajuk, the former majority owner of TEM, unfortunately passed away in 2023, in the middle of construction. The project ended the way it was conceived, with the partners taking it upon themselves to complete it as Bajuk’s legacy. We were all aware that Andrej Bajuk was the engine of this cooperation, he knew how to create good relations, he knew how to trust us, he knew how to support us. And that is why our cooperation was something one can usually only dream of. We are honoured to have experienced such a relationship, and to have realised that there are individuals like Mr Bajuk.

You have also recently completed the Footbridge project in Irča vas.

BB: The bridge is now called Šukljeva brv, after the Slovenian gymnast Leon Štukelj, who lived in Novo mesto and is an important part of the city’s identity. That’s also how we designed the footbridge: as an urban public space. A bridge project can be an enriching public space, or it can be just plain infrastructure. For example, you cannot say that a highway bridge is a public space, although it probably has the most people passing over it of any kind of bridge.

Where’s the room for innovation in architecture, is it the materials, the daring designs, the programme?

BB: The space for innovation is exactly wherever you’re looking for it. Lately, we’ve been looking for it in interpersonal relationships. When we took on the task of designing the Mothers’ Home in Ljubljana, we wondered what its essence was. The client described to us who the users were, and the situations that brought them to the home. We felt that the common spaces were essential for the users, perhaps almost as important as the accommodation. We thus decided to give more importance to the common spaces, and to make private rooms smaller. The Mothers’ Home is a temporary residence, but on the other hand its mission is to help mothers who find themselves in one or another kind of distress to reintegrate into society. We felt that the architecture itself could help in this respect. Through reflection, not with expensive materials, with a welcoming common space, not with daring design features. We believe that through socialising, people can find each other and build a social network, which is perhaps what mothers in need are missing.
RJ: In addition, we designed the outdoor space without a fence, as a multifunctional semi-public space. The Mothers’ Home is the only public building in that part of the city, which is otherwise made up of private houses. We designed it to communicate with its environment, to be related to it and to communicate that it’s a public building, not with a big sign saying “Mothers’ Home”, but with the design of its public space.

You have also designed homes with your neighbourhood Pod Pekrsko gorco in Maribor, and you have several other residential neighbourhoods in the works.

RJ: When we were designing neighbourhoods for the Slovenian housing fund, for example the Pod Pekrsko gorco neighbourhood in Maribor, we asked ourselves about priorities. Is it more important that we install smart installations, a more expensive façade with design innovation, or is it more worthwhile to design quality spaces that are able to respond to the needs of each family, also in the sense that a family changes and develops during its lifetime. And to design a neighbourhood that can cater to the daily lives of its inhabitants. To create a quality living space where everyone finds something for themselves and doesn’t have to drive somewhere on the weekends and contribute to chronic congestion of Slovenian roads.
In addition to Maribor, we are in the initial phases of designing residential neighbourhoods in Šempeter near Nova Gorica and in Trebnje, and in the final stage of the housing blocks in Podbreznik in Novo mesto.
We are pleased to be part of the revival of the public rental housing market, which is driven by the housing policy led by the Housing Fund of the Republic of Slovenia. At the moment residential architecture in Slovenia is being built mainly by private investors with a build-buy-sell-leave mentality. Often, a company is set up exclusively for construction, and after all the units are sold, the company is closed down. This is an extremely damaging practice in several respects. On the one hand, it’s because the buildings they leave behind leave an indelible mark in the urban space, and if they’re seen merely through the lens of profit and loss then this can have long-term negative effects on the city fabric and spatial integrity. On the other hand, it is also a question of liability: the investor builds and disappears until the time limit for appeals runs out, until the bank guarantees expire. Such investors want huge profits, and the risk of something going wrong becomes a burden that must be carried by the community.
BB: I think that such investors are driven primarily by greed. With less greed, it would be easier to build better architecture and more generous spaces.
RJ: I also think it’s essential to mix generations in neighbourhood planning, for example by requiring that every neighbourhood also includes housing for the elderly, and to emphasise the importance of public spaces. In Ljubljana, the spatial plan requires the inclusion of public programme in residential buildings, but elsewhere in Slovenia this is not yet the case. And public spaces are not something that investors want to build, because it reduces their profits.
BB: Just like they don’t want to build kindergartens, children’s play areas, disabled parking spaces, and so on. In this respect I think we have lost the sense of empathy and solidarity. As a society, I think we are focusing too much on competition and individualism as opposed to advocating the common good. But it’s not all bad, as the floods of 2023 confirmed that we Slovenians still very much believe in solidarity and that we are ready to help. If you’re disappointed that you no longer see solidarity on a daily basis then this time of crisis, when more than a third of the country was affected by catastrophic floods, clearly showed that solidarity still exists.