After Departure

This adaptive reuse project reimagines the former Aerovokzal in Almaty, Kazakhstan, a part of Soviet mobility infrastructure, as a performing arts commons, transforming a building once dedicated to transit and control into one oriented towards informal modes of cultural and artistic expression. Originally conceived to efficiently process passengers through tightly choreographed sequences of movement, the aerovokzal aimed to minimize the time spent in the space. The project deliberately reverses this temporal logic by slowing the pace of the building and one’s experience in it through performance, rehearsal, and gathering, allowing spaces once designed for departure to become ones of presence and a shared cultural life.

Drawing on Kazakh traditions of collective gathering and performance, including the horizontal social space of the dastarkhan and the improvisational exchange of aitys, the proposal understands culture not as a fixed spectacle but as an evolving and participatory social act. Rather than introducing a singular monumental intervention, the building extends into the surrounding park through a “scaffolding” structure. The project framework’s openness and horizontal extension evoke the steppe, connecting the existing building and landscape.