Let’s talk architecture

If I were to make a generic statement, I would say that we do not discuss ‘architecture’ much in Malta. While planning issues and planning controversies are widely debated, we rarely venture beyond these topics and discuss ‘good design’ or ‘high-quality architecture’.

Furthermore, if and when we do discuss architecture, we tend to look at buildings in isolation rather than considering the wider picture, comprising the spaces that are defined by the buildings themselves. Consequently, we do not view design holistically and adopt an approach that spans from the broader context, through an intermediate level (a neighbourhood, or a building’s immediate environs) to the building level itself - what is often referred to as the macro-, midi- and micro-contexts.

Any successful case study will further show that good design is invariably a ‘contextual’ design: one where buildings and spaces respond to a context - environmental conditions, economic and social circumstances.

The success of a project is therefore, quite naturally, measured and reflected in terms of the latter three phenomena - these incidentally also being the three founding pillars of ’sustainability’, which in itself is directly related to an improved ‘quality of life’.

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