Place Making
Workshop: Stadslab Master Class, City Making Elements - Tbilisi Courtyards.
Location: Tbilisi, Georgia
Organizer: Marc Glaudemans (Stadslab founding director/Tilburg Univeristy), Lorenz Dexler (Topotek1) and supported by a local Research Group ‘Urban Experiments’ and Irakli Zhvania, Architect and Visiting Professor at the Ilia State University.
Link: https://fontys.edu/Stadslab-European-Urban-Design-Laboratory/Projects/2017-Tbilisi-Georgia-1.htm
Group Team: Prisca Arosio, Ambre Bodard, Lucia Alonso, Sandro Gachechiladze , Muhsen Zaki, Tatia Khutsishvili
2017
‘With this workshop, we hope to determine the characteristics and come up with different modules that constitute good courtyards. The Master Class participants will develop a multitude of strategies for social and spatial design to rejuvenate these courtyards and rethink their role in the Tbilisi of the 21st century. The goal is to reconsider the social and cultural value of the Tbilisi historical courtyards and to propose urban redevelopment and place-making strategies for these sites; creating a basis for the research and planning method to be used in other districts of old and new Tbilisi in the upcoming years.’ Marc Glaudemans (Stadslab founding director/Tilburg Univeristy)
During the study of the courtyards, one of the main points that draw our attention was the lifestyle of people who were introverted in the courtyards and didn´t use street as a point for interaction. While the typical courtyard of Tbilisi traditionally used to be a communal and quiet space, the ones connected with the new pedestrian avenue have suffered a change regarding the intimacy and the way of life. To enhance the interaction between neighbours and visitor we propose five interventions directly connected with Davit Aghmashenebeli Avenue, trying to stop today´s tendency focused on specifically commercial and tourism activities turned away from neighbourhoods daily life.Two areas (number 1,facing the driveway and number 3 as a little expansion of pedestrian street), currently lacking activity but have a potential to bring people together to one space. The second intervention correspond to a interior courtyard, which entry morphology invites you to discover an interior with multiple dimensions and layers of privacy. This area combines in one: residential, coffee place, parking, nature, timber workshop all divided by a ruin of an old church.
At the same time, we intend to redefine the existing pedestrian street as a transition between the chosen areas. For that we differentiate between the transitional pedestrian street (A) which relates directly with the University of Film and Theatre and become a multi- active zone; and the existing hospitality zone (B) where small changes will pretend to improve the walker perception.
