Stefano Boeri Architetti to transform industrial site into residential neighbourhood in Tbilisi

Italian studio Stefano Boeri Architetti has revealed plans to overhaul a former factory on an industrial site in Tbilisi, Georgia, and add a series of colourful housing blocks alongside it. The studio recently won the competition to design the Loco Park masterplan, which will add housing, green spaces and community spaces to the Georgian capital. Aiming to celebrate the site’s industrial heritage, Stefano Boeri Architetti will renovate an existing Soviet-era locomotive factory, rebuilding some of its former architectural features with a contemporary spin. “The new Loco Park neighbourhood will combine the memory of the large Soviet-era locomotive factory with a vision of a contemporary, vibrant space that is green and open to everyone,” said Stefano Boeri Architetti founder Stefano Boeri. “The buildings of Loco Park will be islands in an urban archipelago, distinct yet connected by a network of tree-lined pedestrian public spaces for the whole city to enjoy.” A series of new buildings will be built on the site, providing a mix of homes and community spaces dispersed in an open green space populated with sports facilities, parks and boulevards. Apartments will occupy the upper levels of the buildings, while shops, cafes and workshops will be located on the ground floors. Landscaping will connect with the surrounding city, providing public space for the wider community in Tbilisi. Renders of the Loco Park masterplan show a colourful series of block buildings of different rectangular forms, which Stefano Boeri Architetti said are designed to have their “own identity while remaining integrated into the context”. Stefano Boeri Architetti carried out colour mapping research in Tbilisi to identify colours commonly found in the city’s architecture, which influenced the brick finishes chosen to clad the buildings, including blue-grey, terracotta, green, taupe and white. “We set out to capture Loco Park’s identity through a simple, balanced and contemporary design, inspired by Tbilisi’s extraordinarily rich colour palette, local materials and traces of the area’s industrial history,” said Stefano Boeri Architetti partner Pietro Chiodi. “Colour and brick thus give each building its own identity while bringing them together into a coherent whole.” The buildings will also be distinguished by varying roofline silhouettes, including vaulted, sawtooth and pitched roofs, designed to recall the shapes of traditional industrial buildings. Terraced roofs will be topped with planting and, elsewhere in the development, greenhouses and communal spaces will be created as spaces for residents to socialise. Other projects recently unveiled by Stefano Boeri Architetti include plans to transform a historic transportation depot in Rome into a greenery-covered public space, and designs for a monastery in Milan with a sail-like roof. The images are by Stefano Boeri Architetti. Read more