Urban Palimpsest
Gldani Central Axis
Z. Xu (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
M.G.H. Schoonderbeek – Mentor (TU Delft - Theory, Territories & Transitions)
M. Parravicini – Mentor (TU Delft - Building Design & Technology)
S Milani – Mentor (TU Delft - Theory, Territories & Transitions)
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
This project explores the entanglement between identity politics and spatial transformation in post-Soviet Georgia, using the district of Gldani in Tbilisi as a site of investigation. Against the backdrop of Georgia’s ongoing pursuit of European Union membership, the project questions how national aspirations manifest in the everyday built environment. In Gldani, the failure of top-down urban planning after the collapse of the Soviet Union has resulted in widespread self-built “add-ons”—informal extensions protruding from apartment blocks. These architectural anomalies are both responses to socio-economic necessity and expressions of individual agency in a fragmented state.
Rather than erasing these conditions, the project adopts a palimpsestic design approach that builds upon them. At the center of the proposal is the Wall-Stage Building, a 180-meter-long linear spine that reactivates a dormant 2.5 km Soviet-era axis. The building integrates modular public programs—such as libraries, sports spaces, and rehearsal rooms—into a hybrid structural system of precast concrete and prefabricated steel. These volumes interlock with the spine like reciprocal extensions, reversing the logic of the original add-ons. Through this, the project proposes a new architectural model for urban regeneration—one that does not overwrite informal identity, but weaves it into the city’s future.