Urban experiments group
Urban Experiments Group is an interdisciplinary design group, producing creative projects for the city, based on the bottom up approach to the research and a design process. It was established in 2015 by Nutsa Nadareishvili, Nutsa Kandelaki and Shota Saganelidze. Since its establishment, Urban Experiments hosted several international and local workshops for students and young professionals about formal and informal public spaces and gentrification.
Nutsa Kandelaki received her BA in Architecture from the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts and her Master of Science from the Politecnico di Milano. Her master‘s thesis was about the informal transformation of Tbilisi. In 2015, together with Shota Saganelidze and Nutsa Nadareishvili, she founded Urban Experiments Group in Tbilisi, Georgia. Since then, together with her team members, she has held several workshops on informal and formal public spaces, and the gentrification process. In parallel, she has worked on several resort master plans and land use plans in Georgia. Since 2018 she has been working as an architect and urban designer at TIMM Architecture.
Nutsa Nadareishvili was born in Tbilisi, Georgia. She received her BA in Architecture from Tbilisi State Academy of Arts. with her diploma project being recognized as the best among all Georgian architecture school diploma projects of 2008. In 2011 Nutsa received her architecture and engineering MA from the Technical University of Delft, the Netherlands. During her studies, she worked as a student assistant for the “chair of Methods and Analysis”, helping with the research for the exhibition “Casablanca Chandigarh” in collaboration with the Canadian Centre for Architecture and the organization of 2014 Venice biennale. After returning to Tbilisi, from January 2015 till December 2016, Nutsa worked as an urban specialist at Architecture service of Tbilisi city hall. Together with two fellow architects, Shota Saganelidze and Nutsa Kandelaki, Nutsa is a founder of interdisciplinary design group “Urban Experiments”, producing creative projects for the city, based on a bottom up approach to the research and design process.
Shota Saganelidze was born in 1987 in Tbilisi, Georgia. He received his Architecture BA at the Tbilisi Technical University and later graduated with a Masters Degree in Architectural planning from Vilnius Technical University. His master’s thesis touched on problems of refugees and their environment, focusing on refugee housing in Vake district, Tbilisi. In 2015, Shota, together with his colleagues Nutsa Nadareishvili and Nutsa Kandelaki, founded Urban Experiments Group. The main purpose of UEG is to help students with professional growth through workshops. During UEG’s workshops, students learn how to use ‘bottom up’ and ‘hands on’ approaches for research and planning purposes, which includes working closely with the actual inhabitants of the neighborhood in question. This type of approach aims to create close relationships and trust between young architects and their local community. Shota currently works at Base4 International Engineering & Architectural company, where he is regional director.