Open Square Collective, the design team presenting Urban Fabric at next year’s biennale, discuss their project with Lara Zammit.

The project Urban Fabric by the design team Open Square Collective will represent Malta at the next London Design Biennale in 2023.

The project seeks to re-contextualise the traditional Maltese village core by merging traditional city planning and the Phoenician-Maltese tradition of fabric production and dyeing.

Open Square is a design collective consisting of four members, namely Luke Azzopardi, Trevor Borg, Matthew Joseph Casha and Alessia Deguara.

Each is specialised in their respective fields, ranging from architecture and visual art to spatial design, textile/fashion design, project management and creative direction, with some having collaborated on high-profile local and international projects.

“The main tenets of our team stem from thorough research, innovation and a heightened attention to detail for both aesthetic and contextual considerations,” say Open Square.

The team’s philosophy is strongly driven by ecological concerns and an urgent need for sustainable design and respect towards the world.

“The environment is at the forefront of what we do, both as a team and individually within our respective fields of expertise,” they say.

“Through our work, we strive to encourage discourse about the environment by presenting well-researched, thought-provoking projects that combine aesthetic and spatial awareness with activism.”

Open Square Collective and its concept for Urban Fabric were selected to represent Malta at next year’s design biennale in London following an open call for submissions issued by Arts Council Malta, which is acting as the commissioner and contracting authority of Malta’s participation at the London Design Biennale 2023.

“The call had required participants to take into considera­tion the actual public outdoor space in which it will be set up, and the request was for a site specific, free-standing artistic installation which is immersive, interactive, and sustainable,” they explain.

Widely viewed as one of the top three international art events, the London Design Biennale promotes international collaboration and the global role of design with exhibitions and installations that ‘demonstrated the ambition to create universal solutions to problems which concern us all’.

It is attended by high-profile artists from across the world, and the 2023 edition will be held in Somerset House, London, in June.

We strive to encourage discourse about the environment

The concept for Urban Fabric contains strong ecological principles centring on the Maltese village core.

“The wider context in which the original concept and ideas are located dates back to the Phoenician period,” explains the collective.

“While we sought to anchor the project in the Maltese cultural identity, we have also taken great care to inject into it a contemporary universal relevance.”

The project juxtaposes ancient Phoenician traditions with a hypothetical village map, whereby space is physically delineated by the delicate fragility of purple-dyed fabrics.

“The poetic layers underpinning our proposed project are driven by a strong ecocritical approach that seeks not only to pass a comment about the natural and built environment, but to actively promote sound ecological values,” they say.

Saying that they are particularly sensitive to the ‘authentic’ local urban fabric, they would like to encourage and instil more appreciation and awareness as to what constitutes the ‘Maltese village’ through the piece.

The installation will be crea­ted using organic and sustainable materials which can be easily recycled and repurposed.

The installation will be created using organic and sustainable materials which can be easily recycled and repurposed.

“Using wood, recycled stone and organic fabric as the main material components in our installation, we strongly emphasise the idea of ‘natural obsolescence’, meaning that all organic or natural materials have a limi­ted timespan,” they say.

“We firmly believe that humanity should strive to use ‘recyclable’ or biodegradable materials to their best potential especially when creating designs and objects that are tied by a specific timespan, without unnecessarily elongating the longevity of the organic materials through unnatural means.”

The collective’s ecocritical approach aims to encourage sensibility towards climate change while drawing on the need to protect our urban fabric.

Urban Fabric will be installed within the Georgian era quadrangle at Somerset House, a historic building dating back to the late 1800s.

“The installation will be set up in an in-between space where inside and outside intersect and exchange polarities,” says the team. “Our piece is located in both.”

The outdoor installation allows visitors to enter and navigate through a hypothetical village-like streetscape to reach another external space located within the structure itself.

“Seen from above, Urban Fabric will emerge as a space within a space, within a space, and so on.

“Inside and outside will appear both vast and concrete as the boundaries that delineate their existence become more transparent and fluid,” they conclude.

See more about Urban Fabric at urbanfabricmalta.com.