From 7 to 12 September 2026, Adgili Platform Powered by Socar, conducted an educational architecture expedition in Khevsureti, a mountainous region in north-eastern Georgia.
The expedition focused on the direct study of Khevsureti’s architecture, settlements, landscape and local building knowledge through observation, drawing, photography, video documentation and conversations with local communities.
Seven participants, together with the organisers and invited specialists, explored a series of villages and historic settlements across the region. The expedition began in Barisakho and continued through Korsha, Gudani, Lebaiskari and Kistani before reaching Shatili. Along the way, participants studied fortified houses, towers, traditional dwellings and settlement patterns, paying particular attention to their relationship with the steep terrain, climate and surrounding landscape.
Particular attention was given to Shatili, Mutso(Mitsu,Mutsu), Andaki and the Ardoti valley. In Mutso, participants explored the architecture of the historic settlement and its restoration and conservation experience. At Anatori, they encountered the history of the abandoned settlement and its surviving material traces. Throughout the expedition, participants produced architectural sketches, photographs and video documentation, while conversations with local residents offered insight into traditional ways of building, living and adapting to the mountain environment.
The final two days were dedicated to a design task in New Shatili. Participants worked with the residential complex designed in the 1980s, examining it as a significant example of the encounter between modern construction and the architectural traditions of Khevsureti. After studying the existing buildings and the numerous adaptations accumulated over the years, participants were asked to rethink the residential units and develop design responses connected to contemporary needs.
The task was not about reproducing traditional architecture unchanged. Instead, it asked how local knowledge, materials, spatial principles and ways of relating to the landscape can continue within contemporary architectural practice.
The Khevsureti Expedition forms part of Adgili’s wider approach to learning through place — understanding architecture through observation, drawing, making and direct engagement with people, materials and landscapes.
For us, documenting existing heritage is only one part of the process. The larger question is how inherited knowledge and traditions can be carried forward, adapted and translated for present and future generations — allowing new forms of vernacular architecture to emerge from a continuing relationship between people, place and building.
The expedition resulted in an archive of drawings, photographs, videos and research material that will support Adgili’s future educational and research activities.