An ambitious project for the regeneration of Marsascala has won the top prize at a national architecture awards ceremony but has gathered dust since it was submitted for a stalled tourism ministry tender. 

Designed by Nidum, a collaborative architecture platform, ‘City of 1,000 Gardens’ envisions a transformed Marsascala waterfront with green spaces aimed at increasing local biodiversity and enhancing community space.

According to the master plan, the waterfront project, central to the town’s regeneration, would feature gardens, a saline marsh, a water plaza around the parish church and even a funicular.

The project recently won the President’s Award of the Kamra tal-Periti’s Premju Emanuele Luigi Galizia, which celebrates “architectural excellence”. Last year, its design team also took home the Future Urban Concept prize in the category for Professional Firms at the MASP Awards 2022.

But the awards are bittersweet for Nidum, as the design remains unbuilt.

The master plan would bring the waterfront close to the parish church.

‘City of 1,000 Gardens’ had entered a design contest for a master plan for Marsascala, launched by the Malta Tourism Authority, three years ago.

The tender document – Delivering a Distinctive Mediterranean Visitor Experience – was issued in May 2021 with the winner due to be announced the following September. 

The estimated procurement value, based on market research, was €300,000, and the first runner-up of the design contest was to be awarded €3,000, with €2,000 allocated for the second.

However, architect Albert Miceli-Farrugia of Nidum said the project was dropped at the last minute, after submissions had already been made, and no one contract was awarded despite his project being selected by the design jury. The authorities that praise and award these projects fail to give them any “traction” in real terms, Miceli-Farrugia said.

The MTA intended the design contest to develop an “enhanced” Marsascala that would create a better environment for tourists, residents and local visitors, while also creating an infrastructural backbone for effective business operations.

A less is more approach to lighting at night

The tender document noted that this needed to be done “within an environmentally sensitive manner” and would be “an example for other regeneration projects to follow”.

Nothing happened and, over a year ago, Times of Malta asked the tourism ministry a series of questions including why the plan to regenerate Marsascala never materialised and what the MTA planned to do with the submissions.

The MTA said it would revert in the coming days, but never did.

The tender document noted that the organisers reserved the right to cancel the contest “if circumstances so required”, adding that its termination would not give rise to any claim by the contestants. 

“But is it normal not to send a reason to the competitors,” Miceli-Farrugia asked. “Why shove a good project in the bottom drawer and not show what good they have achieved?”

An elongated waterfront would provide flexible spaces for increased social activity.

Community-spirited regeneration project

Nidum’s proposal aimed to rebalance Marsascala, where unprecedented growth has created a tension between the small-scale seaside village feel and urban development.  

The proposal sought to “recover the town’s community spirit by rethinking its physical organisation, revitalising its attractions and reinforcing its connection to the abundant natural heritage”. 

The project planned to reorganise it into distinct yet connected community centres and quarters. It also aimed to address Malta’s climate goals. 

Conceived as three complementary gardens, these included a saline marsh and freshwater garden in Misraħ Mifsud Bonnici and Il-Magħluq; a terrestrial garden along the Waterfront; and a marine habitat in Pjazza Dun Agius. 

The setting around the parish church would be transformed into a water plaza and garden by extending the waterfront into the square. 

Carefully selected plants would help mitigate pollution, reduce the heat-sink effect and provide shaded zones. The proposal specified that these gardens would not require routine maintenance, given their ability to self-sustain. 

The project proposed plants that would not require maintenance but would self-sustain.

An elongated waterfront would provide flexible spaces for increased social activity, while children’s activity zones would be relocated to the more natural and secure settings around the area known as Il-Magħluq and the new lagoon. 

The widened quay would reconnect the land to the bay and help “rebuild the cultural relationship between the town and nature”. 

A ‘green’ lighting strategy was designed to protect ecologically sensitive areas from unnecessary light.

It also envisaged the development of a seed bank, a local biodiversity museum and laboratory, and a library of Mediterranean biodiversity and geography.

The widened quay would reconnect the land to the bay.

Transport changes

Achieving the overall goals also relied on the gradual implementation of modifications to the road network, including changes designed to reduce traffic flows to the waterfront and town centre. To supplement these changes, alternative means of public transport, including, for example, a funicular connecting the upper Żonqor area to the church, were proposed.

Achieving the overall goals also relied on the gradual implementation of modifications to the road network, including changes designed to reduce traffic flows to the waterfront and town centre.

Quieter, safer streets would become greener, creating more pleasant, desirable environments, and incentives would have encouraged the residents to green their frontages and repurpose their garages for alternative, more pedestrian-friendly activities.

“Like seeds planted into fertile ground, a progressive series of localised regeneration and landscaping projects will assist in the capillary transformation of the physical environment and the social well-being of the communities within the quarters of town,” the project foresaw.