Core Business Center | Bosnia and Herzegovina
17 februari
Project: Core Business Center, Sarajevo // Bosnia and Herzegovina
Architect: Studio Arh, Sarajevo // Bosnia and Herzegovina
Fabricator: Krug d.o.o., Sarajevo // Bosnia and Herzegovina
Installer: Alumontaža Company d.o.o., Podgorica // Montenegro
Façade System: Tray panels on bolts
Year of Construction: 2023
Product: ALUCOBOND® Bronze Metallic + solid Anthracite Grey + naturAL Reflect
Photos: Dženan Jahic
Curtain up for more splendour
Sarajevo has an inviting, well-maintained old town, its red-tiled roofs stretching 400 metres up into the surrounding steep hills. However, the scenery along the M18, the main road leading out of the old town towards the Adriatic Sea, is less than idyllic. The highway runs along a narrow valley, approximately one-kilometre in length, through Novo Sarajevo and Novi Grad where often shabby and dilapidated prefabricated high-rise buildings from the socialist era are densely packed. A channelled river flows slowly past them. The architecture firm StudioArh undertook the renovation of a run-down shopping centre situated here on the busy M18. The building’s bulky format and bluish mirrored glass meant that it was very conspicuous – an architectural relic, built at the time when the communist bloc collapsed. The architects were
tasked with updating the six floors of the building to make them fit for office use, both technically and spatially, and also with designing an inviting, contemporary façade. They modernised the interior space, creating more functional square metres by inserting different floor levels into the former atrium and dividing the existing storeys into separate units to accommodate a number of companies. ALUCOBOND® naturAL Reflect ceiling panelling was selected by the architects for the new lower-ceilinged foyer to bring more light and provide a feeling of roominess and elegance. In dealing with the façade, they used the existing building’s symmetry and its projecting and indented contours as a basis, but they also enhanced the proportions: ALUCOBOND® Bronze Metallic tray panels have now been installed to replace the protruding glass façade which
used to be on the upper storeys. In conjunction with new windows, these panels form a different, staggered, rhythmic pattern of open and closed surfaces on each storey. The old glass façade on the upper floors has been visually transformed into a perforated façade. Folded diagonally, the ALUCOBOND® tray panels join at an angle and, with the reflection of daylight, become a shifting, three-dimensional façade curtain. It is almost as though the building has been wrapped by the artist Christo. The architects kept the mid-position, recessed glass façade axis. This opening in the ALUCOBOND® curtain is like an exclamation mark, which emphasises the entrance portal below. It too is framed in shimmering ALUCOBOND® Bronze Metallic and located in the lower of the two storeys in the base. The base itself takes a step back not only
in terms of the building contours but also in material and colour options: its glass façade is simple and ALUCOBOND® solid Anthracite Grey is used for balustrades and staircases. This gives the base a reserved and timeless look and lets the upper storeys and the portal bathe in the limelight. From the main thoroughfare, the gleaming portal frame and the bronze-coloured façade curtain cannot be overlooked or ignored. The façade, with its slightly open curtain, sends a clear message to numerous passing commuters. It is a hopeful sign that all the other dilapidated buildings in the district will also be able to shake off old the “iron curtain” look and that the surrounding neighbourhoods and the whole valley will experience a new splendour.