How Do You Create a Calm Living Space in a Nerve-Racking City?

More than 30 years have passed since Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina and once a model for multicultural harmony, became a shooting gallery.

In the 47-month-long siege of Sarajevo during the 1990s Bosnian war, more than 11,000 residents were killed and 50,000 wounded, mainly by mortar shells and snipers from Serb nationalist forces. Sixty-five percent of the city’s buildings were damaged, and 80 percent of its utilities infrastructure was destroyed.

Vernes Causevic, 37, was a young child during the siege. After his father was badly injured, his family escaped to London, where Mr. Causevic grew up to be an architect who never stopped looking back.

Today, he and his English-born partner, Lucy Dinnen, with whom he founded the studio Project V Architecture in London, explore architecture as a tool for postwar return, reconstruction and reconciliation.

“There has never been a serious statewide strategy for sustainable return in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Mr. Causevic said, referring to the country’s more than 2 million citizens displaced during the war.