The long-term vision for the regeneration of Marsaskala is centred on sustainable development, including the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals and climate change concerns, especially in those fields where Malta requires further progress.

Marsaskala’s natural and ecological heritage becomes the driver of the regeneration process and of the economic and social progress of the town. At a macro scale, the vision has three primary  goals. The first is to build on and reconnect with the abundant natural and ecological capital of the town – the surrounding open hills reaching down to the beaches and the bays, the coastal landscapes and natural protected zones of il-Magħluq, l-Imwadar, and il-Qortin – and providing for nature to infiltrate the town. The second is to reinforce the sense of community through the reestablishment of the characteristic quarters of the town, arising from the geophysical characteristics of the bay.

The third goal is to incentivise public participation in the regeneration process so that every resident can contribute to the town’s gradual transformation. To succeed, these broad principles require gradual action at an urban level; improving accessibility by removing suffocating infrastructure, and introducing slow mobility and slow tourism networks. The landscape is introduced as a primary infrastructure, infiltrating the denser urban fabric. At a micro level, a matrix of progressive interventions is proposed for each quarter, from the more natural spaces to those more urban, aimed at reinforcing traditional community ties and providing for the residents’ needs. The more recently developed parts of the town suffer all too familiar problems. The proposals provide incentives for residents to green their front gardens, and the rooftops of their buildings, and to landscape and combine their backyards; these are additional small scale, localized interventions guided by the overall vision, where every resident contributes to a community-spirited regeneration for the creation of a City of 1000 Gardens.

The project is a response to a design competition launched by the Malta Tourism Authority in 2021, which sought an overall vision for the regeneration of Marsaskala ‘to allow the village to realise its full potential’. It was felt that focusing on visitors alone negates the importance of Marsaskala as a sizeable residential town. It is no longer a sleepy fishing village nor a seaside summer resort. The redesign of the waterfront is therefore seen as the binder of the diverse measures proposed. A pedestrian-friendly, leisure-oriented public space which unifies the quarters; the real heart of town, set within a new landscape where the waters of the bay, the saltwater marsh, and the tilled fields in the valleys with the surrounding green hills merge into a continuum to promote a reinvigorated ecology.

These proposals for Marsaskala’s regeneration focus on opportunities that are contextual to the local community, ecology and landscape. The emphasis is on applying the natural environment’s ability to improve economic, environmental and social value as a transformative phased mechanism for positive change.