NEXT Downtown Opens in the Historic Centre of Batumi

We are pleased to announce the official opening of NEXT Downtown in the historic centre of Batumi. With this opening, the building becomes the first project in our heritage series to be completed, and it marks the moment at which an approach we have been developing over several years takes physical form in the city.

Our heritage series exists because we regard a city's historic core not as a constraint to be worked around, but as the most valuable asset it possesses. Batumi's old town carries the record of a port that has stood at the meeting point of Europe and Asia for well over a century, and that record is written into its streets and façades. We therefore begin these projects from the position that the historic structure takes precedence, and that our own contribution must answer to it rather than the reverse.

Restoration requires greater time, more specialised expertise and considerably more investment than construction on open ground. Every decision is taken under constraints that new development does not face, and the results are measured in details that most observers will never consciously notice. We accept these conditions because the alternative is a city that becomes interchangeable with any other, and because a façade is not a private possession.

Locations of genuine historical significance are finite and cannot be reproduced, and buildings that retain their character retain their value in a manner that generic stock does not.

NEXT Downtown establishes the standard for our heritage series, and we intend to apply that standard to every project that follows.