my name is ksenija tajsić.
this is the selection of my works
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ARCHITECTURAL PROJECTS
from bachelor & master studies of architecture @ the faculty of architecture, university of belgrade
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coal-mine-land
Center for the Revitalization of the Exploited Mine-land
[01]
Seventh semester of study - Faculty of Architecture, Belgrade; 2018
This infrastructural landscape project stands as a prototype model for solving the problem of used and depleted coal mines. The project was developed at a site-specific location in Kostolac, Serbia, where a coal mine land has been exploited to the point of unusability.
The idea behind the project was to build a system that revitalizes the land in the most energy efficient way. After technological research, I proposed a vertical structure that is self-efficient and self-sufficient - it has a built-in windmill system that collects wind energy, and uses it to pump out groundwater located at the site. In this way, the necessary irrigation system is provided, which is used to irrigate the soil during the process of its mineralization and resuscitation. The end product of this action is complete greening of the soil. It happens in stages and sporadically (first just directly to the vertical elements, and later to the wider surroundings).
These vertical elements are connected by raised paths that allow visitors to have a unique pleasure of walking and enjoying the aesthetics of reborn nature. These trails lie on modular steel girders, which also carry certain scientific-research units: a land quality research laboratory, administrative units, classrooms and accommodation units for researchers and visitors. Within these capacities there is also a restaurant-refreshment block.
Since the whole structure is modular, it is therefore a prototype that can be further used in similar practices.
exhibited:::::
final exhibition of the best student works at the Faculty of Architecture, Belgrade - 2018.
offline::
online:::
[drawings - gallery]




Center for Recycling, Innovation and Development of New Materials
development hub
[02]
Eighth semester of study - Faculty of Architecture, Belgrade; 2019
Analyzing the concepts of metabolism in architecture, directly derived from the impression of contemporary times and the contextualisation of the problems that today's human encounters – a project for scientific and research recycling center has been created.
It is presented in the form of a structure designed to pass from the domain of landscape intervention into an architectural solution.
Composed of individual, interdependent functional parts, the object is “read” as a cell-made structure, connected by the communal paths (tissues), all together structured into an innovation center (organism).
The concept of this project can be explained by the definition of "superorganism" - The collaborative action of the colony of many, which does not allow us to regard this colony as a collection of individual parts, but as a single whole.
Individual, structural elements of this structure are:
- recycling center, with its storage capacities and areas for waste sorting
- innovation center, research oriented, with the capacities for new plastic-recycling model - depolymerization.
Following the concept of morphogenesis and metabolism, and the key words derived from the analysis of these two notions, the object follows the principles of mobility, adaptability and fluidity, floating on the water and adjusting to the external atmospheric influences.
With respect to the ecological principles that this facility is inevitably following, it is merging with nature and landscape, camouflaging and “hiding” inside of it.
exhibited::
final exhibition of the best student works at the Faculty of Architecture, Belgrade - 2019.
offline::
[drawings - gallery]




housing...
...as a Common Good
[03]
Sixth semester of study - Faculty of Architecture, Belgrade; 2018
This project is a contemporary interpretation of the principles of social housing which were popular during the peak of Brutalism in the architecture of New Belgrade. The concept of universal eliminates differences, typifies, standardizes and treats all users and residents equally.
Located at a major transportation knot in Belgrade, this building functions as a well-known Brutalist "block" that meets all the needs of its residents on a micro level. Cafes, kindergartens, service stores, an active first floor and parterre, turn the building into a small universe that asks its residents the question:
Do you really need to get away from here?
The typified floors are intended for living. Privacy is disturbed by accentuated corridors (galleries) that pass the entrance and terrace of each apartment. This principle strengthens the community, and thus the block emerges as a collective good (common property).
The architectural focus of the project is on the internal organization of the block and the apartments, the disentanglement between access galleries and residential units, and the solution of the parterre.
[drawings - gallery]




INTERDISCIPLINARY PROJECTS
from master studies of media architecture @ bauhaus university
weimar, germany
danube showroom pavilion
[04]
Fifth semester of study - Faculty of Architecture, Belgrade; 2018
Team work with Sara Stanković and Zlata Stanojević
Along the banks of the Danube River in Belgrade, lies an abandoned industrial area - a conglomerate of factories, warehouses, silos, thermal and heating power plants, ports, ships....
On the site of the former cogeneration plant "Power and Light", we decide to build an exhibition facility "Danube Showroom Pavilion", catalyzing the reactivation and revitalization of this abandoned industrial area.
The building extends over two floors and about 1300 square meters. The facility is structured with minimal usage of constructional elements, large ceiling spans, and sparse column grid, providing the “cleanest” and most flexible space, adaptable to any internal exhibition needs.
The first floor includes a room for demonstrations and conferences, storage and technical rooms, and a coffee bar. Administrative units and restrooms for visitors and staff are located on the upper floor. The gallery space extends along both floors, in approximately 500 square meters of freely configurable space.
The interior space was created with the idea of maximizing the openness of the façade to the river. The curtain wall achieves a unique conceptual gesture that is atypical of gallery architecture - the full glazing of the façade gives this gallery space a dose of atypicality, complete flexibility and good lighting.
The building was constructed around the steel structure of the truss, which was taken as a motif from the existing abandoned building of the cogeneration plant "Freedom and Light". In addition to the constructive function of bridging larger spans of the structure, the grid goes from the ground-based solution to the canopy, passes through the entire interior of the building, carries stairs and ends at the other end of the building. In this way it "pulls" the visitors inside, but it is also a metaphor for the connection between the past and the present.
[drawings - gallery]




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[01]
clock
extraxurricular
How to present a clock in a new way?
This project visualizes time.
The clock is divided into seconds, minutes, hours, days and months, so each element has a certain number of dots in the circle of its reference system (seconds and minutes - 60 dots, hours - 24 dots, days - 31 dots, months - 12 dots).
A code is programmed to generate a single curve every second, characteristic only for that moment. This curve connects each dot of the reference system in exact moment. Every second there is a new curve, following the time. The old curves remain on the screen. In this way, the user has a clear insight into the time; this clock gives review into how much time has passed since the beginning of the measurement.
The more curves, the more time has passed.
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This project was born on a workshop tutored within NEP educational program in Belgrade,
as a product of collaboration between Andrija Vujović and Ksenija Tajsić.
[02]
observation lab
Media Architecture Biennale 2021
Second semester of study - Bauhaus University Weimar; 2021
Team work with Didem Zeynep Ödemiş
for the best student work in the category "Citizen’s Digital Rights in the Era of Platform Ecologies"
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We collect and provide enormous amounts of data during our daily routines - through social platforms, surveillance cameras, sensors, internet...
But what happens to all that data collected? How is it collected? Are we even aware of technologies that are writing codexes of surveillance?
During a pandemic outbreak, we started experimenting with low-tech devices and their possibilities of becoming surveillance-system gadgets. Using softwares such as Touchdesigner and Arduino NodeMCU on our low-tech home equipment, we dug into the world of face and body recognition language, and created our own response to widely spread trends of observation technologies.
The technological and conceptual narratives are hosted in architectural space – a pavilion which represents an aesthetics of invisible data where visitors can be discovered and observed using methodologies of "tracking and watching systems". They are leaving their traces of movements in space (on the walls of the pavilion) and experiencing the possibilities of newly generated faces, with system that recognizes their new identities, further exposing them by revealing exact MAC addresses of their mobile devices.
As a memory, at the end of the tour, visitors are receiving a feedback of their movements and tracking results as a receipt.
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[booklet]
[03]
multicellular
Urban Hub Pavillion
First semester of study - Bauhaus University Weimar; 2021
Team work with:
Beatrice Perlato
Christian Manzano
Daria Dordina
Didem Zeynep Ödemiş
Sevgin Başarı

“ The "Multicellular" pavilion is an outstanding example of the interplay of design and technology. ”
The pavilion was designed for the "SDE21 urban hub" competition. According to the competition call, the pavilion should be energy-efficient, self-sufficient, easy and quick to set up and it should embody the topics of energy transition and sustainability.
keywords

how to - build on site

one module
assembly / disassembly

components

Our intention was to create an architecture that relies on solar energy. Pneumatic modules require a constant supply of air pressure to have the exact shape. When there is not enough energy to meet the needs required, the pavilion is loose and deflated - hence the architecture is nonexistent.
Each module is an inflatable torus with a steel rode in the middle. The modules are not connected to each other, but the ends of the steel rods are connected with two membranes - inside and outside. Due to the tension we have pre-calculated, the inflated pavilion always has the same shape.
Another important feature is the transparency of the design and its aesthetics: all elements are visible, allowing visitors to see electrical equipment, wiring and solar panels as they are. The design of our hub also includes an interactive kinetic-play part where visitors can learn more about the amount of energy generated by the pavilion and gather more information on sustainability issues.
structure elements

media concept
The initial idea of the media concept aims to raise energy usage awareness.
As visitors come into the hub, they are invited to push the buttons. As they push, a defined group of interactive surfaces will be closed according to the energy that representative household gadget consumes. If they push several buttons, interactive surfaces will respond to all of them.
On the static circles that are closer to the visitors, texts informing about Solar Decathlon Europe and QR-codes are printed.
At night, the hub will light up itself based on the solar energy collected during the day, thus it increases importance of usage of solar energy.


technical components

prototyping...

published
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issue release 22.07.2020 in Weimar
[04]
unity + VR
Radio Drama Visualization
Second semester of study - Bauhaus University Weimar; 2021
" I decided to explore the possibility of creating an atmospherical experience in Unity that is visualizing my favorite paragraph of the radio-drama. "
transcript of the drama
"He finally managed to breathe in all the hidden beauty of the world he had always longed for, and was even tempted to lick everything he saw, heard, felt and sensed with his tongue or at least touch it with his hand, but he was afraid to do so, because he knew that framed image in which the nightmarish scene of all that existed pulsed with incomprehensible harmony would crumble, as if from dust, if he did not keep it in a state of some miraculous cohesion with his hypnotic gaze, and therefore did not dare to take his eyes off it any more, or make any movement, even though at that moment, because of everything that was already happening to him and because of everything that was just waiting for him, he felt an irresistible need to sing and thus announce to the whole world how happy he is that he finally escaped his destiny!"
- Branimir Scepanovic "The Mouth Full of Earth"
[05]
unity 2 + VR
Hey MTV, welcome to my crib
Third semester of study - Bauhaus University Weimar; 2021
[06]
инсталација
third - fifth semester of study - Bauhaus University Weimar; 2021
[01]
CV
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education
academic achievements
april 2022
march 2022
may 2021
2019-2022
Recognition "cum laude - with distinction" for the Master Thesis Architectural sculpture. The cohesion of art, architecture, technology and nature
Bauhaus University Weimar
Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative
Nomination for the 2023 - 2024 cycle for collaboration with a "Pritzker" award-winning architect
Media Architecture Biennale - Nomination for the best student project Observation Lab in der category ‘Citizen’s Digital Rights in the Era of Platform Ecologies’
DAAD scholarship for university graduates in the field of architecture - awarded for a Master's degree
exhibitions
exhibitions
december 2021
july 2021
may 2021
march 2018
april 2017
Čubra-space, Belgrade, Serbia-
"Instalacija 3.1.1"
Youth Biennial - Gallery ULUS, Belgrade, Serbia-
"Air Flow Sculpture"
Media Architecture Biennale, Amsterdam, Netherlands- “Observation Lab”
Architectural Salon - Museum of Applied Arts, Belgrade, Serbia-
Research project "Apartment Building Model”
Block Gallery, New Belgrade, Serbia -
Urban design of Block 45
Additionally: numerous annual and semi-annual university exhibitions and publications - Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade and Bauhaus University Weimar
on-line
publications
july 2021
june 2021
may 2021
july 2020
april 2020
PORT-Magazine 2021 - »Layers«
»Towards Media Architecture: Educating the next generation of urban designers around the world«
University for Applied Sciences Amsterdam
KooZA/rch - Interview - »MAB20 Student Awards: ‘Citizen’s Digital Rights in the Era of Platform Ecologies’«
PORT-Magazine 2020 - »Black Box«
»Izazovi Covid19: Arhitektura Pandemije« -
»Covid19 Challanges: Architecture of Pandemics«
University of Belgrade - Faculty of Architecture
workshops & conferences
june 2021
april 2020
june 2019
nov. 2018-sep. 2019
december 2018
oct.-nov. 2018
october 2018
september 2016
Touchdesigner - Node Institute -
Weimar, Germany
Covid 19 Challanges: Architecture of Pandemic - Belgrade,Serbia
Resilient cities
Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade with Faculty of Architecture in Rotterdam
NELT interdisciplinary educational program -
Belgrade, Serbia
Conference ART+SCIENCE -
Belgrade, Serbia
Missing knowledge (On forgotten Yugoslav monuments) - Belgrade, Serbia
Belgrade Unbuilt, Seminar week -
Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade with ETH, Zürich
Concrete sculpture - Contemporary Art Museum Macura -
Stari Banovci, Serbia
2019-2022
2018-2019
2015-2018
M.Sc. - MediaArchitecture
Bauhaus University Weimar - Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism
Master studies of Architecture
University of Belgrade - Faculty of Architecture
Bachelor of Architecture - Arch. Ing.
University of Belgrade - Faculty of Architecture
working experience
internships:
june - december 2018
- Conceptual solution of the architectural and urban design of a hotel complex in Croatia: urban design proposal
- Conceptual solution and development of a residential building (summer family house): architectural solution, technical elaboration and visualizations
- Renovation of a building interior hall in Belgrade, Serbia: technical elaboration and visualizations
Architectural studio »STUDIO DAB«, Belgrade, Serbia
july - august 2019
- Competition for resort complex in Tivat, Montenegro: design and development of residential units, bungalows and spa-center. Technical drawings for a residential complex.
Architectural studio »109 ARCHITECTS«, Beirut, Lebanon
freelance:
presence
presence
»MUSEALIS«, studio for exhibitions with digital media,
Weimar, Germany
- Video and content creation for the exhibition "Geschichte und Erinnerung" for the Federal Archives Germany
- Video editing for the scenography of the theater play "Im Rausch der neuen Zeit"
Architectural studio »STUDIO DAB«,
Belgrade, Serbia
- numerous architectural visualizations and renderings - interior and exterior architecture
Stage design for events of the collective »Um Laut«,
Leipzig, Germany
curatorial artistic practice as part of the »Čubra« collective
april - july 2021
2019 - presence
student assistance:
WiSe 2020/21
october - december 2020
software
Open Stimuli Project
- Website development and research on Albert Michotte's work -
Faculty of Media, Bauhaus University Weimar
- Member of the committee for the aptitude test for the MediaArchitecture Program
- Student tutor for prospective students of the MediaArchitecture Program -
Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Bauhaus University Weimar
Expertise: Autocad, Rhinoceros, Lumion, Adobe Suite (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Premiere)
Very good knowledge: Archicad, Revit, Vectorworks, VRay, Unity (in Kombination mit VR Umgebung)
Basic knowledge: Grasshopper, JavaScript, Touchdesigner
language
Serbian / English / German