WAFX Award for Re-Use

The project has won a special WAFX award for its re-use of the Old Brewhouse. The WAFX awards celebrate international proposals which embrace cutting-edge design approaches to address major world issues ranging from tackling the climate emergency to building community resilience.

WAF Press Release: Re-use
Re-use was one of our original categories and remains one of the most important challenges for architecture into the future, especially where the dilemma arises around whether to retrofit existing substandard buildings, or replace them using the most advance techniques of sustainability (see Paul Finch’s letter from London in this edition of WAFN). In addition to that are the sheer, sublime possibilities that heroic industrial structures offer that would be hard to replicate with new construction. The latter point is especially true in the four projects considered here, Farsons Old Brewhouse and Trident Park in Malta, the Shanghai Yangshupu Power Plant, Cairo’s Old Post Office and the Brabazon Aircraft Hangars in Bristol, converted to the UK’s fourth largest arena.

ritchie*studio uses the architectural magic of colour, light and shade to enhance the brewhouse’s inherent qualities and transform the building into a centre for events, hospitality, entertaining and working. Users will share rooftop gardens and terraces, and food and beverage outlets. A 200m long art deco colonnade connects to the new workspaces of Trident Park. Inspired by the courtyards and gardens of knights’ templars’ palaces and the way they manipulated the climate to stay cool and comfortable, the seven new buildings comprising Trident Park are all low rise, face east west, have opening windows, generous shading natural light and ventilation, all bathed in colour. Each floor has access from external stairs and galleries, eliminating internal lifts and giving generous uninterrupted internal spaces with 95 per cent lettable area. The result is a unique set of workplaces that are distinctly Maltese, as well as highly efficient economically and environmentally. Here re-use segues into climate energy and carbon, cultural identity and much else.