Hana:

Jasmin Sirčo is architect by profession. He works in Visoko, in a family firm, and architecture is his greatest love. We talked about his activities and interests. The first thing he brought up was the Polygon.

Jasmin Sirčo:

The Polygon is, in fact, our architectural platform, which has been created jointly by six of us architects, including my colleagues Zejdo Kobilica, Amila Rujanac, Mersiha Ćerim i Ilma Kobilica, as partners. There are currently five of us in this platform, but it is an open platform. We mostly apply to public invitations and always invite collaborators, depending on the task at hand. They may be fromother fields and we make it our goal always to learn something, to do our research, forst of all, and to provide solutions in a different fashion. This is how the Polygon has been conceived and it is probably a rare outfit in BiH that does architecture in this fashion..

We have existed officially under this name for two years, but as a team who is together since the university, we have been together for two years.

Jasmin Sirčo is also member of the Setup Association, which has been involved in interesting projects and activities in Visoko for several years now.

Setuup is a non-governmental association active in the Visoko area and it brings together not just architects, but also graphic artists, photographers, i.e. all those interested to set example by their work, and to start some changes. Whether through festivals, lectures, event organization… MMS is one such event, which is our product. There are many other projects that are also the products of Setup (see website www.setup.ba).

I need to note that on several occasions, we critically reviewed town plans, both zoning and regulation ones, prepared for implementation in our town. Then we commented on questionable aspects. With our assistance, people understood, for instance, that a surface garage structure should not be erected in the main town square. At this point, we managed to delay the consruction. If nothing else, we stopped that and demonstrated how to look at some parts of the town, what their potential is.

What might be of greatest interest – the area behind the Town Cinema, Town Museum, and the Replay Cafe. That is on Matrakčijina Street. Now it is a parking, with a garbage dump, a part belongs to the cafe, the building fron is currently falling apart. This is an ideal space for a small town foyer, and the Town Cinema and Town Museum should be oriented towards that space. Then we prepared the first project five years ago and created an open air cinema in that space, thus demonstrating its multi-functionality.

The third activity he found for himself and which he is involved in is the Days of Architecture, which he had started with his university colleagues ten years ago.

The Days of Architecture are an event which has been around for 10 years. It takes place in Sarajevo. We started it when we were students. Nowadays, it is the Lift organization that puts together the Days of Architecture and brings together both students and young architects. It is a place where we organize everything, through the projects Days of Architecture, Nights of Architecture and other satellite events, together with our partners – the Association of Architects, Association of Students, Networks and Meeting. This is an international event at which we had over 150 lecturers to date. This year, they came from eight countries.

I also asked Jasmin what he thinks is the recipe for young people, what could he recommend them from their experience.

A recipe – that is a bit presumptuous – is to do what you like to do. But it really is. From my perspective – its multi-disciplinary, but the foundation is always architecture. In other words, a different format, a different place, and different project, so, if not in a classical fashion, but in an expanded fashion, I keep working in my field.

Jasmin and the Polygon you can follow at https://www.instagram.com/polygon.ba/ and at http://www.polygon.ba.

The activities of the Setup Association at http://setup.co.ba, and te Days of Architecture at http://www.daniarhitekture.ba