This past week has been a hive of activity for organisers of the Malta Architect Awards as submissions started being received at The Fortress Builders in St Mark Street, Valletta.

The creation of the eight awards – which will be given to the winners of the different categories – was spearheaded by Italian designer Fabiola Rampazzo of Padua. When asked for her thoughts on the concept, she said she based her creation upon the understanding that architecture is more than about designing great structures; it’s also about the translation of great designs into practical structures.

“Since these awards seek to reward Malta’s very best architectural designs, I felt that the award itself should reflect these principles while also providing a very artistic element to one’s office,” she said.

Ms Rampazzo added that since the architectural industry views technological advancements, beauty of aesthetics, practicality of design, fluidity and the need for a design to also reflect local cultural roots, she felt that the design concept for the awards needed to draw attention to two principal elements which form its basis: the architect and Malta.

Need for design concept to reflect local roots

“To represent the architect, we have made use of the concept of a divider, one of the most common measurement tools across most industries. At the same time Malta is represented through incorporating elements of the Maltese cross within the design, complementing the divider shape,” she said.

To translate the concept into a tangible three-dimensional design, “we have used three natural building components: wood, steel and glass. These three materials represent the incorporation of modernity, practicality, luminosity and aesthetics into structure.”

Jason Attard, managing director of IMNG Ltd, organisers of the awards, through its Executive Services brand, explained that the production of the awards themselves involved various companies in Malta and Gozo. He said the wooden part of the award is made up of different layers of woods, mainly American walnut and maple, such that their combination created a sense of uniformity while at the same time having diversity.

This wooden base was produced in Gozo by Heirloom Furniture on a precision-cutting CNC machine. Steel Projects supplied the stainless steel for the divider shape, as well as the cut glass also using a CNC cutter. Glass was supplied by Float Glass and BKG Engineering provided all precision-cut stainless steel parts for the top of the divider shape. The final combination of all parts and finishing was done at Chop-It Works using an oil and wax polish.