Two-TwentyTwo

Valletta, Malta

One of the studio’s first Valletta commissions came through entrepreneur and friend, the late Desmond Vella. Having just leased a derelict pub along Valletta’s ring road, his brief was simple: create the city’s hippest bar and restaurant, where music, fashion and contemporary cuisine converge.

The site – an awkward triangular patch of land - faces a concrete vault inside a ten-storey bastion wall. Aware of the multifold heritage concerns typically accompanying such projects, a simple, reversible intervention, somewhat kiosk-like in function, was created and plugged into the ancient fortifications to usher in their regeneration.

A lightweight structure containing the bar and all the back-of-house was devised, while simultaneously hiding the building services. Upon approach, a concrete carpet, terracing down to the entrance, splits into two by an illuminated waterfall, sinking around the raw, fortified landscape. A careful balancing act between inside and out, the box’s controversial protrusion creates a terrace overlooking the views above, which still exists today.

In 2005, the protrusion was made into the logo of the venue, the address of the site became its name, and the box’s tilted door opened for the stduio’s Xmas party. Valletta, for the first time in years, began to attract revellers.

In 2007, the project was awarded the Fondazione Barbara Cappochin architectural prize for Best International Work, and the Din l-Art Helwa prize for best rehabilitation. Sadly, Desmond passed away a couple of years later. Two Twentytwo was a short-lived, great adventure.

Photos by David Pisani