This research paper investigates the use of knitting as a site-specific architectural intervention in post-conflict urban environments, specifically focusing on the city of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Once celebrated for its diversity, Mostar faced devastating destruction during the Bosnian War, resulting in the loss of sixty to seventy-five percent of the city’s infrastructure[1] and marking it as one of the most contested urban landscapes in the former Yugoslavia. Today, Mostar stands as a symbol of ethnic division, with urban sites still visibly and symbolically marked by the conflict. These remnants of war, such as fractured façades and abandoned structures, serve as enduring scars in the collective urban memory of post-war Mostar.

Our project engages with these remnants of war through the development of an architectural textile and covering that both acknowledges and responds to the trauma embedded in the built environment. The project reimagines Gottfried Sempers’ notion of “dressing” (Bekleidung)[2] in architecture as a retroactive act, applying a literal garment (Gewand) that wraps the existing structure. The project explores the integration of computational tools toward the development of context-responsive textile patterns and designs using digital knitting machines. Historically rooted in domestic labor and intergenerational knowledge, knitting carries both symbolic and material weight. Its strength and flexibility allow for adaptable forms that can wrap damaged architectural surfaces, reactivating them without erasing their historical significance. Using a variety of knitting techniques to control stitch density and placement, the project creates customizable textile patterns with varying degrees of porosity, while referencing design elements that have been lost because of the wartime destruction. By integrating traditional knitting techniques with computational design tools, the project creates a structural and cultural system that responds to the complexities of post-war reconstruction.

The paper situates this intervention within broader discussions on memory, heritage, and architectural agency in post-conflict environments. It explores the relationship between the individual envelope of clothing and the collective envelope of architecture, framing knitted coverings as a second skin that mediates between past and present, destruction and renewal. Through this lens, knitting becomes a generative methodology for healing—transforming static ruins into dynamic spaces for reflection, engagement, and repair.

Historic religious buildings are dense vessels of cultural memory whose artworks and fabrics are increasingly threatened by unstable indoor environments. Fluctuations in temperature (T) and relative humidity (RH), varying light, and airborne pollutants drive deterioration mechanisms from fungal growth and varnish failure to thermal shock and wall disaggregation. These risks are shaped by local climate and control practices and are amplified by extreme weather and long-term climate change. This study examines preservation and climate resilience through the 18^th-century Mission Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción de Acuña (San Antonio, TX, USA), part of a UNESCO World Heritage site. Built of locally quarried limestone with ~1 m thick walls, the church typifies high-thermal-mass vernacular construction, offering a testbed for how traditional envelopes buffer indoor climates under stress. Objectives were to: i) evaluate current and projected indoor environmental performance in a high-mass church; ii) test the role of natural ventilation (NV); and iii) assess adaptive performance across ASHRAE climate zones 2A (hot-humid), 1B (very hot-dry), and 3B (warm-dry). A year-long monitoring campaign from May 2023 until May 2024 recorded hourly indoor/outdoor weather conditions, informing a calibrated DesignBuilder model. Future weather files were produced with CCWorldWeatherGen, and scenarios were simulated in EnergyPlus for two cases: NV (all windows open) and no NV (all openings closed). Results show thermal mass delays and attenuates outdoor T swings but cannot alone maintain conservation-appropriate conditions under extremes or projected climate warming. NV strongly impacts RH and thus conservation risk, with especially adverse moisture exposure in hot-humid contexts like San Antonio. Projections indicate rising cooling demand and heightened RH-related degradation. Integrating historical material knowledge with calibrated simulation, the study argues for climate-specific, hybrid strategies that respect cultural heritage while improving resilience: controlled NV schedules, targeted air-sealing and moisture management, and minimal, reversible conditioning to supplement mass-based buffering.

Urban furniture, often dismissed as a minor or strictly utilitarian component of the built environment, plays a decisive role in shaping behavioural patterns, social dynamics and public life. This paper examines how everyday urban objects - including vending machines, benches, smoking booths, tactile surfaces, and makeshift resting points – function as cultural and governance interfaces within four global cities: Tokyo, New York, London, and Berlin. The aim is to analyze how small-scale infrastructural elements vary in their spatial regulation, cultural meaning, and levels of behavioural tolerance. To investigate three categories of objects (formal and informal seating, micro-functional fixtures, cultural-aesthetic elements), this study employs a comparative qualitative methodology drawing on field observation, photographic documentation, typological analysis. Neighborhoods in each city were selected based on the intensity of public life and the diversity of street objects. Through this approach, the paper examines how people occupy, adapt, or avoid specific elements within street life. In the analysis, it uncovers how Tokyo’s streetscape enables a high degree of informal occupation and multifunctional use due to its behavioural norms as well as cultural acceptance of spatial ambiguity. In contrast, Western cities operationalize urban furniture by emphasizing standardization, regulation and durability – though some notable exceptions include New York’s food carts and Berlin’s community-built benches showcasing structured informality. The study focuses on developing a nuanced comparative framework where it shifts from uncovering the East-West binaries towards highlighting how social norms, governance cultures and design traditions shape everyday public life through seemingly ordinary objects. The findings reveal how everyday objects shape micro-public life and rethink the design of public furniture, which opens pathways for more inclusive, culturally expressive and responsive streetscapes. Overall, this paper encourages Western contexts to reflect on the value of ambiguity, multi-functionality, and micro-scale cultural specificity.