colorful panels front TEN's house for women in bosnia-herzegovina

ten completes house for five women in bosnia and Herzegovina

On the outskirts of Gradačac, a town in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina, The House for Five Women, a vibrant residence by architecture studio TEN, rises from the countryside to defy conventional housing models through an architecture of care, resilience, and collective authorship.

Designed in collaboration with local activist Hazima Smajlović, NGO Naš Izvor, Engineers Without Borders, and the Gradačac municipality, the project provides a permanent home for five single women who have survived war, displacement, and systemic neglect. Positioned between privacy and solidarity, the house proposes a new paradigm for cohabitation with five individual living units clustered around communal spaces for gathering, working, and growing food.

Artist Shirana Shahbazi shaped the striking facade of the building, composing a vibrant arrangement of large, colored aluminum panels in shades of pink, red, green, and deep blue. Though seemingly spontaneous, the composition is carefully calibrated, with each panel being custom-made in a local car painter’s workshop. Their rippled, high-gloss surfaces catch and distort reflections, transforming the shell into a shifting, almost liquid canvas that responds to light, weather, and movement.

all images by Maxime Delvaux, Adrien de Hemptinne

Shirana Shahbazi composes colorful aluminum facade

Rather than imposing an external vision, the project, developed by Zurich-based collective TEN, emerged through years of on-site dialogue and intergenerational exchange. Each design decision, down to the textures of the floors and the species of trees planted, was made in close collaboration with local tradespeople, volunteers, and craftspeople, embedding the house deeply into both its physical and social context. Working in parallel with TEN, landscape architect Daniel Ganz orchestrated the integration of the site with the topography, planting trees sourced from the area and designing a garden meant not only for food production but also as a space of care, ritual, and shared activity.

One of the most striking elements of The House for Five Women is its facade, a lively surface orchestrated by Iranian photographer Shirana Shahbazi using vibrant color compositions and material contrasts. Shahbazi’s interventions turn the building into a living tapestry, changing with the light, the seasons, and the daily rhythms of its inhabitants. This visual dynamism signals the presence of life, creativity, and shared purpose in a landscape marked by both beauty and historical trauma.

The House for Five Women, a vibrant residence by architecture studio TEN

collaborating with local workers for solidarity design

Beneath this expressive crown, the ground level contrasts with radical clarity. A continuous band of vertically aligned glass doors and fixed windows runs the length of the elevation, framed by raw concrete volumes at either end. This transparency anchors the building to the ground and opens the communal interior to the outside world.

The process of building the house, as much as the final structure, reflects TEN’s ethos. The team approaches design as a relational practice. Collaborations with local metalworkers, car painters, and carpet repairers brought knowledge and resources together across social and cultural divides. In doing so, the project acts as a micro-institute where design, art, and social work converge to imagine new infrastructures of care. TEN sees this as a prototype for what design can become when it abandons spectacle in favor of solidarity.

The House for Five Women builds a foundation for dignity, autonomy, and interconnected living. In a region where the aftermath of war still shapes daily life, the project reclaims the built environment as a site of healing.

a vibrant arrangement of large, colored aluminum panels fronts the building