Besian Mehmeti
Biography
ABOUT
Besian Mehmeti founded BMA in 2012 after many years of collaborative and free-lance experience in the fields of architecture, urbanism and design. He graduated from the Faculty of Architecture in Skopje and ever since he has been engaged in numerous projects and winning competition designs including the Scanderbeg Square in Skopje, The City Library and Theater in Tetovo and most recently a new Primary School in Skopje, which was awarded the Annual Architecture Award for 2019. The Macedonian Chamber of Architects and Engineers granted the award named prof. Boris Chipan for 2020 for contribution to the development of the architectural profession and most recently winner of the Grand Prix at the XX/XXI Biennale of Macedonian Architecture – BIMAS2023. His works have been nominated for the EU Mies van der Rohe Award, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture and the Archdaily’s Building of the Year Award for 2022.
Besian has participated in several exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale in 2012 and an exhibition in New York in 2019 called “Visions of green urban infills”. Lately, he has been invited as guest lecturer in symposiums, formal and informal architecture events including Creative Exchange in Skopje, Big SEE 2019 in Ljubljana and Engage 2020 in Skopje, SHARE Skopje 2017 and SHARE Tirana 2018 and 2022, and most recently he was invited as a speaker at TEDxPellaSquare.
AWARDS
- Macedonian Annual Architecture Award for 2019
- Macedonian Chamber of Architects award Boris Chipan for 2020
- Grand Prix at the XX/XXI Biennale of Macedonian Architecture – BIMAS2023
SHORT DESCRIPTION OF THE OFFICE
BMA is a creative hub open to young and devoted architects and designers who are prepared to discover new possibilities.
AWARDS OF THE STUDIO
- 2024 Nominee Mies Award
- 2022 Nominee Aga Khan Award for Architecture
- Archdaily 2022 Nominee Building of the Year Award
PROJECTS TO BE PRESENTED DURING THE EVENT
Project #1: Urban Hills
The Urban Hills is set to become a landmark – a landscape-inspired mixed-use development in Tetovo in North Macedonia. The city sits on the foothills of the Sharr Mountains, known for its depicted silhouette which serves as the backdrop of the city. The urban sprawl sparked our conceptual thinking about how to combine, organize, stack, and create a building that would be a vertical neighborhood of homes with gardens. Through an intricate play with the volumes and masses, we have been focused to turn this large-scale project into a human scale project. It will be the highest man-made mountain in the city when it’s finished. Many of the apartments will have their private gardens. With the mixed-use program, we intended to add vibrance on the lower levels while keeping tranquility to the terraces and gardens atop the hills. As the extensive planting matures over the years, it will give the Urban Hills an increasingly green appearance, making the building a paradigm for future developments. The project recently got approval from the city council and it’s scheduled to start construction in early summer of 2025. Although the project is obviously complex, we made an effort to make it as simple as possible; in essence, it is made up of a single element, continuously evolving and repeating itself.
Project #2: May Apartments
Start year: 16.03.2020
IMG_0356
IMG_0574
IMG_0426
IMG_0395
Project #3: K House
Start year: 15.10.2019
