Check Out All The Winners From The Kamra Tal-Periti’s Awards
The first edition of the Premju Emanuele Luigi Galizia for architecture and civil engineering was launched by the Kamra tal-Periti in a prestigious and inspiring event. The award is aimed at supporting, encouraging and promoting excellence and quality design in Malta’s built environment.
“The Galizia Awards aspires to be a platform for investigation, development and implementation of sustainable architectural practice of an elevated level of quality in design and fabrication. It seeks to promote the social, cultural and economic benefits of sustainable growth and minimise any negative environmental impact of construction activity,” said the Kamra tal-Periti in a statement.
The ceremony, which awarded projects completed between January 2016 and December 2017, was characterised by high emotion. Professor Alex Torpiano said the awards were conceived as a celebration of the profession in these very difficult times, and expressed his concern that architects and civil engineers had been side-tracked from good design and were being compelled into acting like lawyers.
The ceremony ended with a 5 minute standing ovation for Professor Richard England after he received the Lifetime Achievement Award. Professor England, visibly emotional, thanked the assembly and said that despite receiving many awards in his life, this was the most special one as it came from his fellow Maltese architects.
The Awards
Civil Engineering Excellence Award
Winner: TBA Periti – Farsons Corporate Office
Photo: Sean Mallia
“The extension to the Office Building in the Farsons Brewery campus was, like many extension projects, both an architectural and a structural engineering challenge. The existing one‐storey office, located above warehousing operations, was a masonry building, roofed over with a concrete roof slab of limited capacity. The intention was to erect a two‐floor office extension; the capacity of the existing building required a light‐weight structure, based on structural steel work, and external cladding. This constraint became the primary design philosophy, with exposed castellated beams, and integrated services, creating an aesthetic that reflected the industrial language of the Brewery.”
Interior Spaces Award
Winner: Valentino Architects – eCabs interior
Photo: Alex Attard
“This was an opportunity for architects to revisit the millenia-old device of creating structures seemingly carved out of one black, a solution that is ideal not only for its seductive aesthetic qualities but also for its marketing potential. It was imperative that the outlet should stand out from the surrounding chaos and formal incoherence, and this is achieved by offering its own purity and seamlessness.”
Interior Spaces Special Mention
Winner: Rebecca Zammit – The Long House
Photo: Tonio Lombardi for Homeworks magazine
“Having no internal courtyard/shaft the central area of the house, it was essential to introduce natural lighting. With this in mind, a glass floor was designed on first floor. This gave the possibility to introduce direct sunlight into the central part of the house in winter, while outdoor cantilevers were designed to exclude sunlight in summer. The skylight in turn gives the ground floor an open feel, creating visual connection between floors. The internal space changes with every season, with the different light pattern and the changing landscape outside. In the main bedroom an internal courtyard provides cross ventilation as well as giving another green perspective. The perforated staircase allows for more natural light to reach the ground floor spaces, with playful shadows.”
Quality Architecture Award and Best Overall Project
Winner: CVCarchitecture Studio – San Pawl tat-Targa Villa
Photo: Sean Mallia
“The house is located within a villa area that was traditionally characterised by its rural nature and low density constructions. Winding rubble walls retaining the soil in fields, the use of traditional stone in the elegant villas together with significant amounts of vegetation create a palette of natural tones consistent with the local Mediterranean landscape. The powerful identity of the different planes creates a strong narrative on approaching the house from the road, thus creating a striking and bold building that sits comfortably within its context.”
Quality Architecture Special Mention
Winner: Archi+ – ‘At The Borderline’
Photo: MAS for Homeworks magazine
“The property’s front façade is mostly solid, yet the back is predominantly open, meeting the client’s brief of providing as much openness and natural light as possible and ensuring that the living space and pool area feel as much as possible combined. Internally the ground floor space is a large open plan. The living area is strategically split from the kitchen dining areas using a split level – a gentle introduction to the stunning staircase and sculptural fireplace in the background. The materials inside and out remain a consistent palette of travertine, off shutter concretes and black accents.”
Urban Regeneration Award
Winner: Architecture Project – Phoenicia Hotel
Photo: AP
“The brief aimed at the insertion of this 1930s hotel within the rehabilitation project for the area spanning between City Gate, the ex-bus terminus and Floriana ex-parade ground. It included the restoration of the facades, the renewal of the back-of-house, the provision of new terraces on the roof of a new wing housing the spa and the re-qualification of the surrounding gardens and pool area, creating a contemporary experience paying tribute to both the art deco structure and the 16th century fortifications.”
Best Emerging Practice
Winner: Valentino Architects
Photo: Alex Attard
“Valentino Architects is a Valletta-based architecture studio which was set up in 2015, and has since grown organically to a team of eight. The studio’s philosophy focuses on a collaborative approach and focuses on design oriented projects – architectural and interior – of various scales. Valentino Architects do away with the notion of style, focusing instead on creating quality spaces through a study of form, proportion, detailing and materials.”
Award ceremony photos: Stefan Varga
Award presentation photos: Jean Marc Zerafa
What do you think of these impressive architectural feats?
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