Nidum

29/10/2024

NIDUM's visionary project for Marsaskala—City of 1000 Gardens—has been honoured with two prestigious accolades at the Premju Galizia Awards 2024, presented by the Kamra tal-Periti: the Architecture Vision Award and the President's Award for Best Overall Project.

Our proposal reimagines the way we inhabit our planet particularly through the way we conceive urban centres, by strengthening communities and identity, while building on our natural and ecological heritage to create more liveable, healthier, and inspiring environments.

Distinct yet connected quarters of the town will benefit from green pedestrian friendly public spaces, with residents encouraged to actively participate in Marsaskala’s transformation. Landscape, local ecology, and global environmental challenges are central to our approach to urban planning, using the natural environment’s ability to improve economic, environmental and social values for positive change.

We are grateful to the Kamra tal-Periti and the jury for this prestigious recognition and are hopeful that authorities will push forward in bringing this vision to life for the benefit of Marsaskala’s community and as a pioneer for the much needed regeneration of our towns and villages.

City of 1000 Gardens was developed in collaboration with Elisa Cristiana Cattaneo, Davide Bardini, Franck Franjou and Hilson Moran.

03/04/2023

Great recognition for NIDUM's submission to the design contest organised by the Malta Tourism Authority for a strategy and vision for the regeneratation of M'Skala.

The proposal rethinks the way we conceive our urban centres, by reinforcing their communities and identity, and building on their cultural and ecological capital for more livable, healthier and inspirational environments. Distinct yet connected quarters of the town enjoy more green open public space and the residents are incentivised to participate in the town's transformation.
Landscape, local ecology and global environmental concerns become central and decisive issues for urban planning.

We are grateful for the MASP 2022 Urban Planning Concept Award for Architectural Firms. A brighter future for Marsaskala rests on further studies and stakeholder consultations, eventually leading to the project's gradual implementation.

City of 1000 Gardens was developed in collaboration with Elisa Cristiana Cattaneo, Franck Franjou, Hilson Moran.

27/10/2021

This fascinating map by Antonino Saliba will soon find itself within the walls of the Gozo Museum.

The map consists of nine concentric rings representing the world as seen from the eyes of a 16th century astronomer. The spheres depict fire, comets, winds, clouds, storms, people, houses, trees, and even the subterranean world and the inferno.

The Gozo Museum is a project by the Ministry of Gozo and Heritage Malta, being designed by Nidum and Studio Adrien Gardère

A map of the world dating back around 320 years has been acquired by Heritage Malta to be part of the national collection and in time become one of the star items in the future display of the Gozo

12/08/2021

Ta’ Cikku Garden in Mosta

Prepared in collaboration with Halmann Vella, our submission for the Urban Greening Pilot Project Competition organised by Greenserve, adopts principles of responsible and ethical urban design, where active natural elements are used to drive transformation over time.

The contest was an opportunity to demonstrate that the main purpose of urban planning can be redirected away from the creation of solid forms to prioritising “empty” ones; left over spaces, ‘voids’, no longer to be treated as anonymous infills between built structures, but as a central theme of contemporary urban design, that of creating usable ‘natural’ spaces to improve community well-being. A new paradigm, where gardens and green environments are simultaneously enjoyable, but also able to safeguard and promote the biodiversity of nature within our towns.

The presence of almost 100 mature olive trees of the Olea Europae (Caroleia variety) species was a revelation. Cikku Fenech’s legacy, preserved within his unkempt sealed-off field; the dense foliage filtering the sunlight, occasionally parting above tranquil clearings screened from the surrounding urban landscape.

Our scope was twofold: to minimize any impact on the existing grove, and instead enhance the sites’ biodiversity using local flora and fauna, while making small pockets below the olives more accessible. The grove, remaining untouched, becomes the heart of a new public space that instead extends across the road to create a wider public realm.

The new garden, an outdoor museum of botanical sciences, an incubator of local biodiversity, and a repository of knowledge, is encircled by a continuum of public space that prioritises pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users without disturbing essential traffic flows, to guarantee slow, leisurely mobility on a neighbourhood scale.

A new garden for a contemporary Mosta, smart and dynamic, its new public spaces sustainable, resilient, yet as variable as nature itself, capable of accommodating the new dynamics of changing exigencies of future generations.

In collaboration with Prof. Arch. Elisa Cristiana Cattaneo and Arch. Davide Bardini

Many thanks to Matty and Sammy Cremona for sharing their knowledge and their kind hospitality

09/12/2020

When NIDUM was commissioned to put together a feasibility study for the vertical connection between the Marsamxetto ferry point and Great Siege Road the natural starting point of our endeavour was to explore the historical richness of the site through archives and libraries in Malta. It was through these records, which included anything from formal correspondence to technical drawings and photographs, that the feasibility of this project was developed from different perspectives. This generated a document which included considerations of practicality, historical integrity and social realities of the area.

The images show juxtaposed photos, drawings and documents used in this research, which were archived at the Office of Public works and the National Archives of Malta.

01/11/2020

900 artefacts will be displayed at the punic quarry in Victoria, on the site of Huntingford's mid-century school, and within the walls of NIDUM's new sundial building at what will be The Gozo Museum.

NIDUM's multi-disciplinary team, collaborating alongside Paris-based Studio Adrien Gardère, has worked closely with the team at Heritage Malta and the Ministry of Gozo to develop a holistic museum experience that uses architectural cues to tell the narrative of the museum.

Read more about our process from curator and head of Gozo Cultural sites at Heritage Malta, Nicoline Sagona.

In 2018, workers on the site of the new Gozo Museum, in Victoria unearthed an ancient quarry, possibly dating back to Punic and Roman times. Further archaeological investigations confirmed that the quarry sprawled across the entire site, including the area beneath the 1950s school that was being...

31/07/2020

Christopher Micallef and Alberto Collet have, over the past three weeks overseen a workshop for the Universita’ IUAV di Venezia, Wave Summer Workshop 2020, entitled ‘In/Visible Void’. The students worked to create a response to a brief that provoked crisis-resilient architecture, and the adaptability we have all come to desire from our built environment. Here are some excerpts of the students' work which was recognized by the IUAV jury and awarded with the ‘Best Public Building Project’ award.

14/06/2020

Christopher Micallef and Alberto Collet, are coordinating one of the workshops on this years edition of W.A.Ve workshop organized by the IUAV. WAVe 2020 will be the first architectural workshop to focus on post-Covid scenarios

The pandemic has exposed the fragility of our urban systems. Across the globe, it has taken its roots in cities and proven to be the single most potent disruptive force to the engines of economic growth.

Architecture in the modern project has been symbol and carrier of progress and growth – actively participatory in fueling a climate emergency. The parallels between the inadequate governing responses to the coronavirus crisis and climate change are all too clear. There’s an urgency to revisit our understanding of the role that architecture might constructively play in the post covid landscape.

The workshop will be running from the 6th till the 24th of July 2020. Follow the event on http://www.iuavwave.it/2020/

06/04/2020

Chalet in Action was an opportunity to communicate the desires people have for public space using Sliema as the main testing ground.

Thank you Maltarti and Arts Council Malta for accompanying us at the opening of the European Cultural Centre Russia 's exhibition entitled 'Public Architecture - Future for Europe'.

This project was done in collaboration with Vienna based studio, transparadiso and supported by the Arts Council Malta - Cultural Export Fund, Halmann Vella, Malta Tourism Authority, Elektra Malta, Tas-Sliema Local Council and the Farsons Foundation.

05/02/2020

Last week Nidum were at the opening of the exhibition 'Public Architecture - Future For Europe’ curated by European Cultural Centre at the Schusev State Museum of Architecture in Moscow, Russia. It was great to participate with our installation ‘Chalet in Action’, a project that Nidum along with Vienna-based studio transparadiso conceived and developed to initiate a discussion on public space in Malta.

Chalet in Action underwent a participatory process for discussing communal values and visions for reappropriating public space, creating a platform to host the collective aspirations of the local community.

We used the venue of the former Chalet to deliberate the greater condition of public space in Malta. By shedding the economic and political constraints from the thought process of the individual, Chalet in Action highlights how people engage when invited to take action and matters into their hands. The participatory events were conducted with people of various demographics in different locations, allowing for the expression of their multi-faceted desires and engaging in the production of urban qualities beyond personal interests.

The installation we presented in Moscow is the departure point of a much wider discussion. It takes the form of a simple and democratic space in which all voices are represented equally, providing a space which allows the viewer to approach, interact with, and conquer.

We would like to thank European Cultural Centre Italy, European Cultural Centre Russia and all those who supported and contributed to our endeavour.

Arts Council Malta - Cultural Export Fund, Malta Tourism Authority, Halmann Vella, the Farsons Foundation, Elektra and Tas-Sliema Local Council.

05/12/2019

Last Saturday a second public workshop was held in collaboration with The Malta Union Club. Participants were invited to answer a set of questions about their memories of public space in their childhood, what they miss in Sliema and public space, what was and what is special about Chalet, what they are willing to give up, amongst other questions asked. Follow more updates on the Chalet in Action page.

19/11/2019

Sliema’s historic Chalet located off the promenade is a public space that evokes emotion and nostalgia in generations of Maltese. Now a group of architects is trying to find out what the public wants from the space which has been left abandoned since 1963, ahead of an exhibition in Moscow. On...