The pavilion was planned as a stage design for The Malta Design Week 2014, held at Fort St Elmo, Valletta, a fort built by the Order of St. John in 16th century. A 5m-wide parabolic vault made from 413 discrete CNC-cut marine plywood panels aims to both respect and assert itself within the strong historic context by referring back to numerous variations of vaults within the fort.  This duality translates itself within the assembly logic of the vault: an interlocking system of the individual panels where each panel supports and is supported by the neighboring ones. The interlocking also removes need for any mechanical fixings and extensive falsework during construction. In the design of the pavilion the same forces that are trying to bring the structure down are used to keep it up.

The pavilion is collaboration between Irina Miodragovic Vella (University of Malta), Steve DeMicoli (DeMicoli & Associates, dfab.studio) and Toni Kontik (ETH Zurich), and is based on the outcome of a research on stereotomy and the 17th century patent by Joseph Abeille for a flat masonry vault. The single unit geometry of the Abeille flat vault is a tetrahedron truncated by two parallel planes. The interlocking and inter-supporting property of the assembly comes from inverting every second tetrahedron in a checkered pattern.  For the pavilion, the interlocking assembly logic of the flat vault was applied on a curved surface. It was further revised to accommodate the material choice by discretization the logic of the assembly of solid blocks into an assembly of plates.

The design reinterprets heavy masonry structure in a contemporary way by distributing material along the flow of forces. The redundant spaces with the material system take on a secondary function through the modulation of light, wind and visual porosity.The pavilion demonstrates a strategy of responding to sensitive heritage setting: historic architecture embraced by up-to-date technologies; transformation of the Abeille vault through the use of digital tools, from design to fabrication, resulting in a design whose performance goes beyond its initial requirements.

Architects:  Irina Miodragovic Vella (University of Malta, Faculty for the Built Environment) & Steve DeMicoli (DeMicoli & Associates, dfab.studio), Toni Kontik (ETH Zurich).

Location: Fort St.Elmo, Valletta, Malta

Design Team: Francesca Camilleri (dfab.studio), Zack Xuereb Conti (dfab.studio), Dr Jeanette Abela (DeMicoli & Associates), Luke Pellicano (UoM)

Special Thanks: Ray (DeMicoli & Associates), Jing Yao Xu (UoM), Christopher Azzopardi (UoM), Sacha Cutajar (UoM), Justin Coppini (UoM), Kristine Pace (UoM), Mark Vella (UoM), Rachel Debattista, Francesca Scicluna, Justin Zarb

Year: 2014
Photographs: Alex Attard, Toni Kotnik, Steve DeMicoli