NEWS: Gudiashvili Square Redevelopment, Tbilisi, Georgia - New life for historic plaza (worldarchitecturenews.com)

Zechner & Zechner have won first prize in a competition for Multifunctional Project Development in Tbilisi, Georgia. The project task was to develop a multifunctional area with shops, offices and restaurants around the Gudiashvili Square in the heart of old Town in Tbilisi. This is partly in the redevelopment of listed buildings, but the majority are newly constructed


The choice of a structure divided into individual buildings carries on the old town’s habitual growth pattern, interweaving the new development with the existing fabric of the city. The valuable ground floors are exclusively shopping and restaurant space, which also partly extend to the below-ground floors.


The below-ground floors will also be partially used for self-contained restaurant space. The office and residential space are planned on the upper floors. Similarly the architectural design follows the urban integration concept in attempting to respond to the scale and character of the location.


Zechner & Zechner explain: “We will transform a classic Georgian element into a pattern that will form part of the facade design, supported by the richly decorated balconies, and take on the intricacy and scale of the historic faces of the existing buildings. The element will be a unifying idea suffusing the facades, in various degrees of abstraction, and harmonising the individual buildings to create an ensemble.”

Source: www.worldarchitecturenews.com