BOSNIA: Students seek a green future from scratch

Bosnia-Herzegovina is among the least energy efficient states in south-east Europe. But now former and current students at the University of Sarajevo are the driving force behind environmental initiatives that they hope will lead to new ways of learning and harnessing new technologies derived from across Europe and the rest of the world.

In 2008 Bosnia-Herzegovina's energy bill was EUR2.1 billion (US$2.8 billion), which represents almost 20% of the country's gross domestic product.

With the European target of a 20% cut in energy consumption and a 20% increase in the share of renewables in the energy mix by 2020, coupled with a 20% cut in emissions of greenhouse gases by the same date compared with 1990 levels, the potential annual saving is at least EUR420 million a year.

The initiatives by students and graduates came to the fore in May when students from Sarajevo's faculty of architecture organised three days of lectures by 12 international specialists, with support from the Dutch and Norwegian ambassadors.

"Days of Architecture 2011" was the third attempt to create an opportunity in Bosnia and the Balkans for interaction between students, university faculties, national and local government, industry and commerce.

Lead organiser Ajdin Polic told University World News: "Sarajevo's students have shown a keen awareness of the wideness of scope necessary to cover the full and complex range of modern-day constraints.

"They are biting at the bit and hope to seek ways to find internship and jobs from our choice of speakers, whose subjects ranged from the reconstruction and urban regeneration of Beirut's city centre to a German architects' battle to convince a bureaucratic gathering of town mayors and local vested interests to stymie any ideas of green design."

Eleven speakers were architects or city planners, and I was invited as a British engineer keen to seek a total rethink of building and urban design that is climatically adaptive, healthy and in balance with nature.

Polic admitted that the biggest issue was funding and he greatly appreciated the financial help given by the Dutch and Norwegians. Both ambassadors sat in on the meetings and the Norwegians mounted an exhibition of partnership work with Bosnian architects.

The student committee was enthusiastic about a proposal to develop Sarajevo as a regional centre for ecological and sustainable excellence where regional universities would work together to create climatic-adapted architectural design, research and the establishment of new eco-industries.

Although there was agreement that such an endeavour could act as a catalyst to regenerate Bosnia and the whole region, doubts were raised over the sources of finance free of the 'usual strings' that are widespread in the Balkans.

Several students and local architects who attended the meetings felt that there was a history of outside finance sapping drive from the recipients.

A number of students complained of a lack of interaction with other academic disciplines. For example, student architects had not invited their colleagues from the faculties of landscaping, civil, structural, mechanical and electrical engineering. This was highlighted by a number of speakers who saw a multidisciplinary approach as the critical ingredient of any successful building construction.

Independently, the mechanical engineering faculty at Sarajevo has been treading its own path. It obtained support from the United Nations Development Plan (UNDP) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and stakeholders in Bosnia and Herzegovina such as Norsk Energy, to implement a three-point efficient energy pilot plan with affordable and obtainable objectives, which was due to be completed by the beginning of this month.

The objectives are to implement demonstrative and replicable energy efficiency projects in public buildings in Bosnia and Herzegovina, to establish within the faculty a centre of excellence for energy efficiency, and to build a multimedia centre for energy efficiency as a pilot to gather and promote public-private partnerships.

The centre of excellence would provide a focus for students and a wider audience to learn of the benefits of energy efficient actions, meet with the private sector, and learn how to apply their acquired understanding in commercial and institutional settings, communities and houses.

The first demonstration project, to kick-start a simple programme of improving the insulation of buildings, reducing gas consumption with the use of high efficiency condensing boilers and installing monitoring systems, has been completed in an old university building at a cost of US$482,500 underwritten by UNDP and USAID.

Jakobsen Daferopic, dean of the mechanical engineering faculty, appreciates that this initiative may seem elementary to the design criteria of more advanced nations. "Bosnia is a country that needs to start a learning process from the grassroots of sustainable design," he told University World News.

To tap into the market potential of sustainable energy development, the initiators of the multimedia centre believe that it is critical to inform all levels of society, including citizens, businesses and political leaders.

Daferopic said that most of the funding necessary to start construction has been found. The centre will have eight thematic areas covering climate change and the environment; training, education and awareness; the 'smart home complex'; energy efficient construction; energy efficient interiors and exterior lighting; heating and ventilation; renewable energy resources and, importantly, means of financing.

In September Sarajevo hosted the third Green Design Festival, inspired and directed by Bosnian émigré architect Dr Elma Durmisevic, an associate professor at the University of Twente in the Netherlands.

"Bosnia and Herzegovina is building its future almost from scratch. It has the potential to recognise new trends and integrate them into the fabric of our society in such a way that Sarajevo becomes a regional centre of excellence in green concepts, and then to develop it as the first true Green City in the Balkans", she told University World News.

Speakers invited included Michael McDonough, an industrial designer from New York, proposed by USAID, Ton Venhoeven, adviser to the Dutch minister of infrastructure and ecological architect Dr Ken Yeang, a partner with the London-based international practice of Llewelyn Davies, Yeang.

Durmisevic said an event on such a scale could not have happened without the support of the USAID-Sida FIRMA project and the Dutch Embassy in Bosnia.

Architectural practices based in Sarajevo welcome these practical actions. Muhamed Serdarevic, principal partner of Normal Arhitektura, is one of a number of architects whose work has become international with clients as far afield as China, Germany, Russia and the Emirates.

He said: "Such actions need national government backing, but also they must work in unison if they are too succeed. We have a region of the Balkans with a clean atmosphere suitable to become a manufacturing centre for climati-adaptable technologies such as solar skins and other carbon free energy saving devices.

"This can be achieved provided that such initiatives and actions are not spoiled and privatised by what the Americans would call 'carpet baggers'. It's wonderful to have festivals but just talking is not enough to achieve success to give our hopeful students and workers jobs in their own country."

* Bill Holdsworth is a professional environmental and energy engineer with 60 years' experience worldwide. He is still active in consulting, lecturing and writing. Books include Healthy Buildings: A design primer for a living environment (Longman 1992) and Encyclopaedia of Architectural Technology (Wiley 2000).