Mtskheta House of Justice

The city lies at an altitude ranging from 380-450 meters above sea level and has the shape of an amphitheatre surrounded by mountains on three sides. The city's climate is moderately humid subtropical with cold winters and hot summers. The average annual temperature is 12.7 °C; 0.9 °C in January, and 24.4 °C in July. Absolute minimum recorded temperature is -23 °C and the maximum 40 °C. Snowfall average 15-25 days/ year.

Svetitskhoveli Cathedral (Georgian: , svet'icxovlis sak'atedro t'adzari; literally, "the Living Pillar Cathedral") is a Georgian Orthodox cathedral known as the burial site of Christ's mantle. It presently functions as the seat of the archbishop of Mtskheta and Tbilisi, who is at the same time Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia. Cathedral was built in the 11th century by the Georgian architect Arsukisdze.

The site is located in the centre of Mtskheta (Geo) on the (Northern) Left bank of the river Mt'kvari. The site has wild greenery not being used for a while. The size of the plot is 1000m2. The surrounding area morphology mostly consists of residential buildings. There is Svetitskhoveli Cathedral in about 300m from the site, establishing strong visual connection. There is a library and some sport facilities nearby. There is another signifi-cant visual link to the site - Jvari convent situated on top of the mountain the Right bank of mtkvari and overlooks Mtskheta.

The idea of the proposed building emerged based on a number of consider-ations:

• Primarily, the desire to establish visual and conceptual links to Svetitskhoveli Cathedral and Jvari convent

• A focus has been given to introducing an open space under a sole arched roof.

• Wedding hall is positioned in the middle of the building under the solid cone

• The cone composition represents - dynamics, solidity and distinguished purpose of the building. Chamfered volumes reveal the space to the external viewer, thus emphasizing transparency and welcoming aura

• Introducing multi-arched space combines and synthesises programme blending functions with easy flow

• The project relies on one level of building programme in order to maximise the use of land and budget.

• The project is single stage construction using concrete structure with premade planking

The building has simple programme distribution on one level: Lobby, Public Service Hall, Offices, CRA (Civil Registration Service), Cafeteria, Archive, Technical