Name: Shruti Bangari
Track: Architecture
Studio: Borders & Territories
Year: MSc 3/4 / 2025
Type: Graduation Project
Tutor: Marc Schoonderbeek, Mauro Parravicini, Stefano Milani
Description:
Project Description:This thesis project reimagines the urban bazaar in the heart of Tbilisi, Georgia, by proposing a hybrid architectural space that integrates a waste sorting facility with a Georgian “bazaar” marketplace. Situated at the intersection of informal trade networks and negligible waste infrastructures, the project explores the dual roles of trade and waste as agents of urban change. The project responds to Tbilisi’s strategic position in global trade routes and its cultural reliance on informal marketplaces, as well as the city’s fragmented waste management practices.The design is located on a brownfield site, formerly a railway repair depot, and leverages its infrastructural past to propose a new civic space. By examining material flows, urban rhythms, and social dynamics, the thesis constructs a spatial dialogue between the formal and informal, public and restricted, and human and machine. The project speculates on how architecture can bridge economic, environmental, and cultural systems—proposing not only a building, but a new way of seeing and situating infrastructure in the city.