Reinventing our campus

The University of Malta is a second home to thousands of students, academics, researchers, and staff. The question is: Is the Msida campus being used to its fullest potential to welcome and serve all these people? Following the M.Arch program at the Faculty for the Built Environment, a group of students turned their critical gaze towards the spaces in and around the Msida campus to answer this question.

There is no special formula for producing a design strategy. It is equal parts critical thinking and creativity. However, there is a key truth that helps frame things for designers: create the space as though you are using it yourself. In this case, the students were already users. As a result, they designed solutions for campus spaces wearing not only a ‘student hat’ but a ‘design, user and evaluator’ hat. They thought of planning tools, SMART objectives, space, and evaluation standards. They also considered the ‘eight dimensions of product quality management: performance, features, reliability, conformance, durability, serviceability, aesthetics, and perceived quality. 

The designs show how spaces should reflect the way people really want to use them.

In the end, student Alison Galea brought life back into the light well inside the Faculty for the Built Environment, turning it into a student hangout area with a lounge and relaxation room. Jessica Galea re-visited the outdoor space at the science lecture theatre to make way for some creative outdoor furniture and futuristic shapes intended for breaks between lectures. Brandon Saliba re-thought the Quad ditch, introducing new seating with versatile materials and better-managed spaces, perhaps encouraging others to soak in the summer sun during the end of semester time, preempting the much-needed summer break. 

The designs show how spaces should reflect the way people really want to use them. Once designers place themselves as users in the centre of the project and build solutions around those needs, the gap between design for its own sake and design used to make change begins to close. 

Author: Dr Rebecca Dalli Gonzi

Piled higher, dug deeper

Triaxial testing rigs are used the world over to experiment on ground materials such as soils, rock, or powders. At the University of Malta (UoM), one such rig started being assembled in 2014 using existing equipment at the Faculty for the Built Environment, modernised with the help of the Faculty of Engineering. The rig is now complete, with plans to test rocks typically found in Malta, simulating the stresses created by big excavations and tall towers, steep slopes and deep underground tunnels.

The laboratory is used to investigate the engineering characteristics of weak ground materials such as clay, silt, sand, and weak rock (turbazz in Maltese building terminology). Space and economic pressures are pushing local buildings deeper and taller without the knowledge of how the local rocks can sustain the pressures created.  Architects and engineers, now more than ever, are being asked to design excavations and buildings in these weak materials.  Abandoning a site for a stronger one is now no longer an option. In-depth understanding of how ground materials behave, therefore, becomes fundamental if dangerous consequences are to be avoided. 

Quick Specs
  • Specimen size: 38mm dia. x 76mm
  • Maximum axial pressure: 220 bar
  • Sensors measuring specimen behaviour during loading: 12
  • Minimum loading speed: 0.00001mm/min
  • Testing control: Fully automated and computer controlled

The equipment is already being used to teach the next generation of architects and engineers. They now have the opportunity to experiment with the local ground materials. They can load them with imagined future buildings or unload them through simulated excavations, all the while observing the real-world effects.

The first real research effort is aimed at understanding what’s going on in Malta’s weak Globigerina limestone, which is currently loaded by heavy buildings. We need to be aware of their internal structure, the water within, how they crush and how long it takes. It’s likely to be a long story, but this is just the beginning.