Re-Inflate: Reimagining Laguna Vere as a Living Eco-Machine for Tbilisi | Bachelors Design Project on Adaptive Reuse

Site Context

Laguna Vere is a unique brutalist aquatic complex in Tbilisi, Georgia, set into a steep hillside and originally designed as a major public sports facility with outdoor pools, grandstands for more than 5,500 spectators, and layered indoor spaces beneath the seating terraces. Once an important venue for national and international events, it was permanently closed in 2015 after financial difficulties and the impact of a major flood, and today it stands as a quiet but powerful urban ruin. Its most recognizable features include the long mosaic entrance façade, the exposed concrete jump tower, and the strong relationship between the building mass and the site’s topography.

The TerraViva competition frames Laguna Vere as a site of adaptive reuse, asking designers to preserve its architectural and artistic value while reimagining it through new programs, new connections between interior and exterior spaces, and a sensitive response to the surrounding urban context. Rather than treating it as a lost object, the brief positions Laguna Vere as a place of opportunity: a canvas for cultural, social, recreational, or educational renewal.

Design Process

The design process consisted of researching references connected to ideas that had already been explored before the Laguna Vere competition began. The students’  mentor had been studying inflatable architecture and its possibilities extensively, which became a key influence throughout the project.

The process aimed to maximize sustainability while minimizing intervention and destruction to the existing structure and surrounding environment, ultimately seeking adaptive and opportunistic solutions that could work in harmony with the site.

Final Outcome

The final outcome is a sustainable, environmentally responsive architectural proposal expressed through a neo–steampunk aesthetic that seeks to harmonize with its surroundings rather than dominate them. The project explores a visual language where industrial imagination merges with ecological sensitivity, creating an atmosphere that feels both speculative and deeply rooted within its context.

At its core, the proposal transforms the abandoned swimming complex into a self-sustaining urban oasis driven by ecological productivity and adaptive architecture. The former pools are repurposed as hydroponic gardens floating on inflatable cushions, where nutrient-rich water supports the cultivation of vegetables and herbs. The stepped spectator seating becomes integrated with aeroponic growing capsules, lightweight suspended spheres that allow plants to grow in air while dramatically reducing water consumption. Along the abandoned slides and railings, spiraling algae tubes function as living bioreactors that absorb CO₂, purify the surrounding air, and contribute oxygen back into the environment. Together, these systems establish a closed-loop eco-machine where water is collected and reused, vegetation filters the atmosphere, and local food production supports an experimental public café.

The proposal also introduces educational and cultural layers that reconnect visitors with both the future and history of the site. A ground-floor showroom exhibits the technologies behind the transformation, including hydroponic and aeroponic systems, algae harvesting infrastructure, and tensile membranes supported by helium-inflated balloons. Above, a museum archives the former life of Laguna Vere through photographs, journals, illustrations, newsletters, and memorabilia, preserving the collective memory of the complex while reframing it within a regenerative future.

Architecturally, the project investigates inflatable and tensile systems as primary design drivers. Lightweight membranes are stretched across the pools and elevated through helium balloons and soft-robotic mechanisms that allow the surfaces to breathe, shift, and adapt to environmental conditions. By adjusting balloon heights, the tensile skins dynamically provide shading, collect rainwater, and create changing patterns of light and shadow throughout the site. This responsive architectural layer acts as a reversible soft skin that touches the brutalist concrete structure only where necessary, ensuring the original fabric remains entirely intact.

Conclusion: The project ultimately proposes a new typology for urban ecological renewal — an architecture that is alive, adaptable, and environmentally integrated. While the final visuals communicate this speculative atmosphere through a neo–steampunk aesthetic, they represent only the visible surface of a much deeper conceptual process. Beneath the imagery lies a broader narrative exploring sustainability, temporality, memory, and the coexistence of nature and technology within the evolving urban landscape.

[This Academic Project has been published with text and images submitted by the student]