Team
Project Supervisor: Dr. Irina Miodragovic Vella
Dissertation Supervisor: Dr. Alexia Mercieca
Consultant Supervisor: Prof Marc Bonello
Project Tutor: Perit Alex Spiteri, Perit Alberto Micelli, Perit Jacques Borg Barthet
Student: Noah Zammit
Within Reach reframes ageing in place as an architectural and cultural challenge. In Birgu, remaining at home does not mean remaining connected: steep level changes, inaccessible routes, diminishing services and weakened intergenerational networks can reduce an older resident’s world to the home. The project asks how architecture can prevent ageing in place from becoming ageing in isolation, while allowing Birgu’s identity to remain lived rather than simply preserved.
The proposal operates at three interconnected scales. A town-wide strategy identifies interventions in access, mobility, food, care and social infrastructure. A Main Hub provides support, healthcare and a continuum of housing from adapted independent living to assisted and dependent living, allowing residents to remain within a familiar community as needs evolve. The principal intervention, the Fortification Edge, reconnects Birgu’s residential core to the waterfront through an accessible vertical framework of ramps, lifts, terraces and social spaces. Together, these layers transform care from an isolated institution into infrastructure embedded within familiar routes, rituals and places.
The project develops research undertaken in my dissertation, The Familiar Place: Enhancing Private Residences for Dementia and Ageing in Place. That study demonstrated how environmental barriers, declining legibility and delayed adaptation can intensify dependency, while familiar, proactive and adaptable environments can support autonomy. Within Reach extends these principles beyond the dwelling, treating the town itself as part of the support system required for ageing in place.
Programme is organised as a descent from town to sea, combining productive uses rather than age-specific facilities. A regatta viewing terrace, kazin-inspired dining space, bocci platform, shaded café, start-up spaces, skills studios, traditional workshops, active-ageing areas, performance spaces, regatta facilities and waterfront pools create reasons to leave home and participate in life. Older residents are not positioned solely as recipients of care, but as contributors: passing on festa-making, boatbuilding, craft, stories and local knowledge while younger generations gain skills, workspaces, services and opportunities to remain within Birgu.
The architecture responds to the fortifications. A demountable steel grid follows their geometry while remaining structurally independent, allowing bays to open, close, expand or be removed as community needs change. Contact with the fabric is minimal and reversible, while the reflective glazed façade mirrors the sea, setting its movement against the permanence of the limestone fortifications. Flexible platforms respond to Birgu’s seasonal rhythms, festa, regatta, markets and harbour events, allowing the architecture to change with the community rather than outlive it.
Environmental systems are integrated into this relationship with place. The north-facing façade maximises daylight while limiting direct solar gain; shaded terraces and exposure support passive comfort; salt-tolerant native planting responds to the maritime setting. At waterfront level, seawater is drawn through a filtration canal to supply community, hydrotherapy and thermal pools, while its movement is proposed to contribute to on-site energy generation. The canal also reconnects the fortifications to the sea, restoring a relationship obscured by land reclamation.
Within Reach proposes that social sustainability begins with belonging. Everyone carries knowledge, memory and experience worth passing on; architecture should keep these lives, traditions and relationships within reach.
