Spaces in Between

architects Dinko Peračić, Roman Šilje
written by Hans Ibelings

 

The new building for the Faculty of Civil Engineering in Osijek is more about interior space than anything else. And although the majority of the interior space is dedicated to education, much more important here are those spaces which are not for education proper, and which were even not specifically asked for in the brief. The Faculty of Civil Engineering is the outcome of a competition design made by Dinko Peračić and Roman Šilje in 2005 while they were both studying at iaac, the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia in Barcelona. Since then, both Peračić and Šilje have gone their separate ways, but this project from their Barcelona period ended up becoming their joint project. More than a decade later, the project is finally completed. During this process of realization, an important change has been made to the campus master plan on the site of the former military barracks, which was used as the point of departure of the competition design and its subsequent elaboration.