Red Star Apartments in Belgrade

The Serbian capital of Belgrade is currently experiencing a tremendous construction boom that is transforming it into an attractive, modern metropolis in south-eastern Europe.
A growing number of real estate investors are discovering Belgrade as an attractive boom market in the Balkans. Construction is taking place virtually throughout the city: from blocks of flats, prefab renovation and new apartments to sports facilities, shopping centres, business parks, logistics centres and entire new factories. Even a modern marina and an aqua park are under construction to compensate for the fact that Montenegro's independence means that Serbia no longer has access to the Adriatic, and thus no longer has a coastline.
The latest trends: there is still particularly heavy demand for new shopping and office facilities. Now that affordable mortgages have become available, residential construction and the business of renovating old prefabricated buildings are booming. At the same time, prices everywhere are exploding. And the trend is still rising.

Belgrade's city administration regards the ongoing, vigorous construction boom as an indication that the Serbian capital has managed to overcome the isolation and stagnation of the past and initiate a process of urban development and renovation.

Here a Project that I personally like a lot: The Red Star Apartments


Red Star Appartments Residential complex is an already approved project, that is planned to be started in 2008/2009. It's situated near delta City Shopping Mall from the same investor (Delta Invest Group) and the famous "Crvena Zvezda" - Marakana Stadion in the Novi Beograd Area.
Arranged in one 8-floor cascading building and one 18-floor tower, the investor wanted great layouts and an abundance of daylight, so as to maximize healthy living conditions.

Bosmal City Center in Sarajevo

Bosmal City Center, is a modern, private residential building with monitored entrances, reception, luxurious apartments and common areas (lobbies, saunas, pool for adults and children and a nursery) serving the residents. it's located in the Hrasno district of Sarajevo and until now was the highest building (118m) in the Balkans (construction started in 2001).



From the pormoting firm's description:

"The Center offers 306 residential units, with 8 penthouses and 298 apartments, organised in 14 types, with areas ranging from 80 to 220 sq. m. Nine high-speed elevators connect to the garage-commercial area of the center. The residents will be absolutely secure, with special security service responsible for constant monitoring of the whole object, with 200 surveillance cameras on duty, sensors and other modern equipment. The communication areas in the center, commercial areas and the underground garage with 400 parking lots are monitored from the reception point.
A restaurant is located at the highest point of the building, giving a panoramic view of the town, including the historical districts as well as the new part of town and its surroundings. The commercial area is open to the public, with two restaurants and a meeting bar, supermarket, hair and beauty saloons, dental practice, ambulance service, ophthalmologist’s and optician’s, leather goods boutique, art sales, jewelry shop and other exclusive boutiques."

Now it would be interesting to know, who are the residents that need so much security....


Here a picture that was made a couple of weeks ago from Peter when he visited Sarajevo.

Serbian Design - VODA VODA

My first "design-impact" in Serbia was shorty after arriving in Belgrade, when I bought a bottle of water at a snackbar.
I was already very inspired just from the ride from airport to the city (the Airforce Museum, some spectacular Blocks, the Genex-Building, the amazing view to the Belgradeskyline with Kalemegdan) so really I just wanted a bottle of water ....but I got one more overhelmig sensation: the bottle was the most beautiful plastic-bottle for water I had ever seen.

A transparent, squareshaped container with relief printing of the brand. The name of the water ('voda' in serbian) is: Voda Voda - like name and last name! Since 2007 Vlade Divac (most famous NBA basketball star from Serbia) is the owner of VodaVoda Company.


The amazing design is from Branko Luka cofounder and partner of non·object (an U.S. based design company).

The inspiration for the bottle came from the water itself, since water was composed and designed by nature log before life began. Water can momentarely take any shape of any vessel in an instant. Lukic wanted to create a vessel that would become a connector between nature and oneself, an aproach he already shows with the name of his company: non-object.

asked: what is non-object? the answer is:
non-object is the space between you and the object

The square PET bottle that can fit more bottles per given footprint than common round bottle takes care of the rational and pragmatic aspects of package design.

The PET Voda Voda Bottle
Designer: Branko Lukic
Branding and graphic design: Suncica Lukic




But who is Branko Lukic? Entrepreneur and master of the unexpected, he is non·object's design experience visionary and author of non·object Design Fiction book.
Prior to non·object, Branko was a lead industrial designer at frogdesign and IDEO, where he lead projects for clients such as Nike, Adidas, Samsung, Intel, Motorola, SAP, HP, Pepsi, Starbucks, Ford, Herman Miller and other major international companies.
Branko won his first design contract at the age of 18 back in Belgrade, Serbia. Since then, he has created work in a wide variety of areas, including industrial and product design, branding, sustainable design, graphic communication, digital media, and conceptual design. He holds many patents and has won numerous national and international awards in the field of design and branding including Business Week IDEA Gold Award, Graphis Design Annual Award, International Design magazine Awards, red dot Awards, Good Design Award etc.



Branko Lukic earned a B.S. in Industrial Design from the University of Arts in Belgrade. Here in the picture next to a mobile phone he designed that has no screen....just on all sides.
Here an interview for VIRED magazine.

Avaz Twist Tower in Sarajevo

Some readers were pretty amazed about the Project in Pristina of my last post. It seems hard to believe that in the Balkans there are some new and modern office buildings. So I decided to dedicate some attention to this peculiar buildings that grow optimistically in an area where nobody would expect economical prosperity.


The Avaz Twist Tower will be the new headquarters for Avaz, the popular Bosnian newspaper company. It’s located in Marin Dvor, Sarajevo's business district which has recently been totally renovated.
The new tower went under construction in 2006 and it is expected to be completed some time in 2008. The Avaz Twist Tower will hold the record for being the Balkan's tallest tower and the 88th highest tower in Europe.
It is made up of a twisting glass facade and will be 142 meters tall (40 floors) with a 30 meter antenna reaching a total height of 172 meters.

At a height of 100 meter there will be a panorama-restaurant.

Before the Avaz Twist Tower, the Bosmal City Center (about this later) twin towers held the record for being the tallest towers in the Balkans, standing at a height of 128 meters. Avaz's current headquarters have been turned into a 5 star hotel and offices.


The architect of this tower is Faruk Kapidžić. The panorama of Sarajevo looks funny with this Si-Fi-Tower in the middle. Where is urban planning?

Pristina - the future?

In my last post I showed some exiting buildings in Pristina.
In the comment section (and later by mail) I got into some interesting discussions about: Ehm, yes nice what's there and now what's next ?!

What I'm going to show now is a spectacular project done by the Pristina-based ANARCH architectural studio of Astrit Nixha.
It's supposed to be the highest skyscraper in the Balkans (165 m)!
Construction (as main contractor) is being performed by the Croatian firm Konstruktor (based in Split) and will employ 2,000 people. Investor is Kosovar company ENK Invest Group in cooperation with four other firms from Albania.
The costs will be around 400 milion Euro and estimated completion is in 2 phases in 2011 and 2014.

The complex is located on Bill Clinton Boulevard close to the center of Pristina (in Lakriste, an ex-industrial zone) on an area of 26,000 m2. With a floor space of 285,000 m2, the complex consists of 100 luxury apartments, a 165 m 42-story-high high-end office tower, a shopping center, a hotel and six level subterranean garages.


So far everything seems fine. The project is nice and would stand up to international standards.

But honestly, there are some questions that I have to ask myself:

• How will this construction site work, if still now electricy is not available the entire day and as much as one would like? (I'm very curious to see how a projects like that can be made with lack of energy and water...)
• Who will rent this appartments and this office-spaces and who will be using the shops? (I coul go on asking what are the shops selling, because the Kosovo region has no own production of food or any goods and importing goods will not really generate a big economy).

The ordinary inhabitants of Kosovo will hardly have the oportunity to ever step into that building, due of lack of money...and the middle class is totally missing in Kosovo...so it will be only for the very wealthy and I don't dare to ask what kind of wealthy people.


The project is very optimistic...let's see how's going on..... I'm afraid it will be the highest empty skyscraper in the Balkans!