Tbilisi: Topographical Invention
Tbilisi, Georgia
A prototype for Urban Landscape Regeneration
A research project, 2020
Article published in Ri-Vista: Vol.19.No.2
The study focuses on the capital of Georgia, Tbilisi, where, by developing site-specific projects for the neglected urban fragments, finds the opportunity to reflect on the role of public space in the contemporary city. The contradictions of a post-Soviet city demonstrate the difficulties of operating with large-scale actions. However, it still suggests the possibility of modifying the urban condition through punctual interventions. The architectural proposal has been developed in the framework of the Tbilisi Architecture Biennial 2020 on the topic of Commonness.
Image by Julian Larcher, 2020
Image by Salome Katamadze
The research aims to show the opportunity to re-use important existing infrastructure in a state of abandonment, taking strongly into consideration the urban fabric and landscape characteristics of the site. The project reveals a new scenario of new public spaces for Tbilisi based on the traces of the past. Public space is never a mono-functional space; it is a place for possibilities shared by the community, giving them the potential to engage the urban environment.
The intervention proposes to transform a small part of the stairs into a tiny pavilion for outdoor events. The structure is based on the module of the stairway steps, and therefore, it recalls the topography of the site. The vertical supports decrease in height as the stairs rise. The rhythm of the structure follows and amplifies the presence of the stairs. The proposal intends to represent in space the faint presence of the stairs, otherwise invisible from the viewpoint of the street.
The research concentrates on the difficulties of defining a city by the dichotomy of public and private spaces, as these categories are often ambiguous in terms of use of space, land property and limits. These urban phenomena of uncertainty have been significantly increased after the drastic switch from socialism to privatization in the post-Soviet countries, afterwards resulting in a spontaneous and uncontrolled urban tissue.
Since the beginning, the most significant expansion of the city started by following the banks of the river Mtkvari; all the flat areas were easily urbanized and divided into zones. During the high demand for more housing possibilities, the city’s growth exceeded not only the flat areas but reached as well the hills, modifying approaches towards the context and urban fabric.
Along with modern infrastructures, such as roads and the subway, the pedestrian path became the most characteristic connective element of the hilly tissue. On the one hand, Soviet buildings seem not to interact with the landscape, but that they only base their criteria on the quantity of the inhabitants and constructive necessity. On the other hand, the district’s public spaces inevitably adapt to the topography and the steep slopes of the territory.
In this scenario, one of the most emblematic and repeated solutions is an urban stairway, which passes throughout the hilly neighbourhood of the city and generates a space of connection and sharing, independently from the car roads, relating only to the morphology of the landscape.
Image by NOIA
The architectural proposal rethinks the relationship between the public stairways and the neighbourhood of the Nutsubidze micro-district. This infrastructural element unites not only several slopes of inhabited dwellings but crosses the main street at several points and hosts on a small terrace the neighbourhood church. It is a clear geometrical line that was driven to balance the invasive construction approach towards the existing landscape.
Tbilisi: Topographical Invention
Tbilisi, Georgia
A prototype for Urban Landscape Regeneration
A research project, 2020
Article published in Ri-Vista: Vol.19.No.2
The research concentrates on the difficulties of defining a city by the dichotomy of public and private spaces, as these categories are often ambiguous in terms of use of space, land property and limits. These urban phenomena of uncertainty have been significantly increased after the drastic switch from socialism to privatization in the post-Soviet countries, afterwards resulting in a spontaneous and uncontrolled urban tissue.
The study focuses on the capital of Georgia, Tbilisi, where, by developing site-specific projects for the neglected urban fragments, finds the opportunity to reflect on the role of public space in the contemporary city. The contradictions of a post-Soviet city demonstrate the difficulties of operating with large-scale actions. However, it still suggests the possibility of modifying the urban condition through punctual interventions. The architectural proposal has been developed in the framework of the Tbilisi Architecture Biennial 2020 on the topic of Commonness.
Since the beginning, the most significant expansion of the city started by following the banks of the river Mtkvari; all the flat areas were easily urbanized and divided into zones. During the high demand for more housing possibilities, the city’s growth exceeded not only the flat areas but reached as well the hills, modifying approaches towards the context and urban fabric.
Along with modern infrastructures, such as roads and the subway, the pedestrian path became the most characteristic connective element of the hilly tissue. On the one hand, Soviet buildings seem not to interact with the landscape, but they only base their criteria on the quantity of the inhabitants and constructive necessity. On the other hand, the district’s public spaces inevitably adapt to the topography and the steep slopes of the territory.
In this scenario, one of the most emblematic and repeated solutions is an urban stairway, which passes throughout the hilly neighbourhood of the city and generates a space of connection and sharing, independently from the car roads, relating only to the morphology of the landscape.
The research aims to show the opportunity to re-use important existing infrastructure in a state of abandonment, taking strongly into consideration the urban fabric and landscape characteristics of the site. The project reveals a new scenario of new public spaces for Tbilisi based on the traces of the past. Public space is never a mono-functional space; it is a place for possibilities shared by the community, giving them the potential to engage the urban environment.
The architectural proposal rethinks the relationship between the public stairways and the neighbourhood of the Nutsubidze micro-district. This infrastructural element unites not only several slopes of inhabited dwellings but crosses the main street at several points and hosts on a small terrace the neighbourhood church. It is a clear geometrical line that was driven to balance the invasive construction approach towards the existing landscape.
The intervention proposes to transform a small part of the stairs into a tiny pavilion for outdoor events. The structure is based on the module of the stairway steps, and therefore, it recalls the topography of the site. The vertical supports decrease in height as the stairs rise. The rhythm of the structure follows and amplifies the presence of the stairs. The proposal intends to represent in space the faint presence of the stairs, otherwise invisible from the viewpoint of the street.
