Transcending the “standard” understanding of architecture

Spatial interventions and cultural activism in Serbia

An ambition that transcends the “standard” understanding of architecture as engineering and design unites the selected initiatives that build on this through a review of the economic and cultural policies of this “spatial sensibility”, which is, somewhat paradoxically, one of the fundamental conditions and a tool for reflecting on architecture, something that contributes to the final constitutive whole that can serve to reflect on the future.

Ephemera Collective, Novi Sad

https://ephemeracollective.org/

Ephemera is a creative collective based in Novi Sad, Serbia, that was officially established in May 2015, but has been a continuous practice since 2010. The group is active in the field of architecture, its related disciplines, culture, and participation, both locally and internationally. All of its founding members are architects, working either in the architectural practice or education. Ephemera cherishes an interdisciplinary approach in all of its professional domains, with an emphasis on collaborations with performance designers, directors, actors, dancers, visual artists, dramaturges, and writers. Specialised in site-specific work, Ephemera has successfully led programs, workshops, and other formats resulting in site-responsive spatial installations, site-based performances, cultural activism projects, and further investigations of creative processes related to specific sites. The main focus of the collective’s overall practice is architecture/space as a protagonist in various events.

The founding members are Miljana Zeković, Višnja Žugić, Bojan Stojković (active from 2015 to this day), Vladan Perić and Jelena Mitrović (active 2015-2019)

TEN

https://ten.studio

TEN is an architecture, design, and research association working on the principle that value is a result of design effort. Its engagement with public themes of interest and open research on the built environment is shaped by its common statutes.
TEN is organised like a record label, providing new and evolving formats for interdependent work groups. It hosts several programmes across three key entities each with intersecting trajectories. TEN aims to conceive, explore, and produce ideas that both state and expand upon emerging practices in the built environment. It works in the field of counterproposals by means of building prototypes, urban propositions, algorithmic design, and materials research with a range of collaborators, colleagues, institutional partners, and private clients.
Wittgenstein once said that “words are deeds”, but TEN begs to differ. Particularly in a time when words fail to reflect any consensus on the material world and serve primarily to fortify self-fulfilling rhetoric. In response, TEN returns to an active investigation of architecture as a shared process, whereby experimental methods of collaborative design are used to both explore and make a type of working commons built through constant, open, and creative negotiation.
TEN is currently focused on developing models for affordable housing based on designing for sufficiency as a common value, either through invited studies, prequalified competitions, or self-initiated collaborations and projects.

Members, 2015-2024: Aleksandra Bašić MArch, Cyrill Wechsler MSc ETH Arch, Danijela Jovičić MSc ETH Arch, David Stöger Dipl.-Ing Arch, Dunja Dedić MArch, Fabian Launer MSc ETH Arch, Fabiana Frisullo MSc ETH Arch, Jelena Perović Dipl Ing Arch, Joel Zimmerli MSc ETH Arch, Luka Piškorec MSc ETH Arch (PhD), Lukas Burkhart MSc ETH Arch, Mariapaola Michelotto MArch, Nenad Pavlović MArch, Nemanja Zimonjić MSc ETH Arch, Nicolas Rothenbühler MSc ETH Arch, Ognjen Krašna MArch, Scott Lloyd MSc ETH Arch, and Tijana Mačkić MArch

STEALTH.unlimited

https://stealth.ultd.net/

STEALTH.unlimited (Belgrade/Rotterdam) works at the intersection of future fiction, spatial intervention, and the politics of possibility. Initially the group focused on researching and mapping “stealth” urban processes, operating below the radar of urban planning. They soon became involved in international curatorial projects that explored and exposed collective citizens’ capacity to confront the neoliberal enclosure and financialisation of space. Aware of the limitations of cultural and artistic activities, they shifted towards more direct engagement. In the last decade they have co-initiated two long-term community-based endeavours, “Who Builds the City” in Belgrade and “City in the Making” in Rotterdam, to address the unsustainability of current housing conditions. They have also helped start several housing, energy, and finance cooperatives. Their book, Upscaling, Training, Commoning (Jovis Publishers, 2018), provides a lively account of what it means to engage with the glimpses of a world that has become conceivable in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis.

Founders: Ana Džokić, Marc Neelen, since 2000