Urban room No. 5: Grbavica Marketplace

Figure 80. Urban room No. 5: Grbavica Marketplace aerial photos. Left: The view over residential pavilions and green areas towards the market place; Right: Aerial view of the Grbavička street, a congested pathway separating the marketplace and the green areas.

Overview

Grbavica Marketplace (Figure 85) is in the municipality of Novo Sarajevo, an area of residential neighbourhoods from the socialist modernist period. The marketplace is a key gravitational area for the local community of residential quarter Grbavica 1, which has a population of 10,000. It consists of a 1200 m2 covered market, and various commercial facilities dispersed throughout the ground floors of residential buildings and in one-storey

provisional buildings, which have emerged since the end of the 1990s war. These unplanned structures from the city’s most recent socio-political transition caused the space to fragment into multiple urban voids and discontinuities. The scope of the analysed area includes the wider area of the marketplace and the adjacent green areas between four residential pavilions typical of the 1950s Socialist Yugoslav period. The total site measures approximately 2.5 hectares, comprising of built structures in a compound that embraces the marketplace with its intra-block green areas and interior Grbavicka Street. Some significant public areas within a 1km range are two primary schools, the University of Sarajevo’s Forestry Faculty, a youth centre, a mosque, and Wilson’s Promenade. Apart from one smaller communal commercial centre and other shops and cafes dispersed in the vicinity, the wider area of the Grbavica Marketplace is a major hub of public activity for the entire neighbourhood.

Site Assessment

According to our typological categorisation, Grbavica Marketplace is a communal public space. Since the maximum distances between referential physical structures and pathways do not exceed 100 metres, it is also a medium-scale public space. The geometric layout of the site is complex, due to the multiple physical obstacles obstructing its pedestrian flow, and highly congested stationary traffic. Consequently, the attributes of urban activity, accessibility and atmosphere in this site vary (Table 19). Some segments, such as the open-air and covered market areas, are highly active, accessible and extroverted, while others, such as the intra-block green areas, are inactive, partially inaccessible and highly introverted. The overall site is swamped by urban voids, physical barriers and parking areas, interrupting pedestrian flows and views. On the other hand, assessment of the site has shown its strengths: its favourable location as a gravitational point in the wider context, its unique variety of public programmes, and the potential of its underused and undefined adjacent green areas.

Table 19. Identification matrix: key attributes of the Grbavica Marketplace wider area. Source: Autors

I. HISTORY

Medieval Ottoman Habsburg Early Yugoslav

Soc. Yugoslav Contemporary

II. ATTRIBUTES

Typology Scale Enclosure Activity Accessibility Atmosphere

Civic/Green/ Communal/ Transport Small Semienclosed Passive Accessible and cond. accessible Introverted

III. TRANSITIONS

Socialist–Capitalist Low–High-tech Formal–informal Global–Sitespecific Oriental–Western

Intervention strategy

The transformation of this site into an extended living room for the community of Grbavica can be achieved through programmatic improvements, the development of its urban identity (such as its spirit and urban resilience), the enhancement of its design criteria, and the engagement of its public, private and community sectors. Through the use of urban-interior design tools, this area could be transformed into a communal plaza with an accompanying park. The proposed intervention strategy is based on the idea of establishing continuity and uninterrupted spatial flows by connecting disparate urban voids. This could be achieved by enhancing existing programmes (such as the open and enclosed markets, which have generated vibrant urban life for decades) while eliminating or redefining physical obstacles, such as unplanned structures and copious parking areas. Underground parking could be built, which would enable the observed branch of Grbavicka Street to be closed to

traffic. Vehicles could be redirected 100 metres to Hamdije Cemerlica and Zagrebacka Streets. This programmatic intervention strategy would entail a traffic adjustment that only allowed service access, and a substitution of the disparate commercial facilities with pop-up shops, cafes and bars, to enable unification of the pedestrian zone. Opposite the marketplace are intra-block green areas, hidden behind one-storey commercial structures. If their geometric properties and layout were refined, these wonderful though inactive green spaces could be reunited with the prospective plaza to provide new views and programmes. The urban-interior tools proposed for this space include urban gardening and the installation of site-appropriate playgrounds and youth/recreational areas. Our intervention strategies envision this site as an ensemble of multiple urban rooms, attracting all generations of people who live in the neighbourhood. Some of the tools we recommend (such as popup shops in the market and graffiti art and a skate park in the urban

void behind it) are inspired by social and cultural events that have taken place in the area.65 These civic activities are a basis for the application of collaborative strategies, such as tactical urbanism and iterative placemaking. The prospective atmosphere of the urban room of Grbavica Marketplace could be created through the use of urban-interior tools, such as emphasising the visibility, legibility and accessibility of the space, along with the gradation of sequences, and the installation of urban furniture and lighting. The methodology of urban acupuncture can be applied at the micro level (by pinpointing the highlighted areas/rooms), and at the macro level (by multiplying these tools in surrounding areas), to generate the transformation of the wider Grbavica neighbourhood.

65 The Dobre kote group of young activists organised an open-air youth art exhibition in 2015, with the help of the local community. In 2019, series of socio-cultural gourmet events were organised at the Grbavica Marketplace under the banner of Time Out Grbavica.

Figure 81a. Grbavica marketplace urban room illustration prior to interventions.

Figure 81b. Grbavica marketplace urban room illustration in case of application the described intervention strategies.