Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1500676
14 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 4 JUNE 2023 NEWS In defence of the Maltese terraced JAMES DEBONO URBAN planner Antoine Zammit wants to change the perception that the only value terraced hous- es in towns like Santa Luċija, San Gwann, Pembroke, Imtarfa and Ta' Xbiex have is in their potential for redevelopment into apartment blocks. Zammit does not romanticise the terraced house, but recognis- es its value in terms of liveability. The Maltese terraced house was influenced by the British "row house typology" formed by se- quential plots, which are typically long and narrow. In local architec- ture this signified a shift from the courtyard model of older hous- es, to ones having a back yard, sometimes with a front garden, depending on how the surround- ing streets were defined from a town planning point of view. Numerous houses built as part of the Home Ownership Schemes (HOS) and Building Development Areas (BDA) schemes, were built according to this model which prevailed from the 1960s until the 1990s. The main merit of these rows of terraced houses, according to Zammit, lies in their "streetscape logic, rhythm, and proportion" especially in the proportion of height that works well with the proportion of the street, allowing sunlight penetration and natural light into the street. They are also characterised by a proportion that works well with the human scale and that humans can relate to. So, there is merit in having a uni- fied streetscape, characterised by a 'diversity in unity' – in which di- verse architectural styles and aes- thetics follow an overriding logic which ties them together. Reinventing the terraced house Zammit acknowledges that socio-economic realities have changed since the 1970s and 80s. The traditional family model is changing, and it is good to de- velop housing typologies that reflect such realities for an is- land which today has a greater population density. But while increased density comes with positive conse- quences in terms of econo- mies of scale for such services such as making a mass trans- port system more viable, densifi- cation must be studied strategical- ly. "Some areas should therefore be densified more than others," Zammit says, adding that densifi- cation "should not automatically mean the demolition of two-sto- rey buildings to four-storey plus setback blocks." In this context, the terraced house remains an important typology which should not be obliterated but one which can be adjusted. "One may still carry out refinements and optimisations to the terraced house typology – for instance, numerous terraced houses would benefit more from a nice central courtyard/lightwell that draws natural light into the centre of the property, than have a back yard which barely contrib- utes to this and results in rooms that are almost constantly de- pendent on artificial light." But unfortunately in this new social reality the terraced house has been treated as a site for de- velopment and its value has been based primarily on this potential, making it too expensive for pro- spective young families. Game-changing sentence Zammit considers a recent court sentence revoking the permit for a five-storey block in a row of ter- raced houses in Santa Luċija as "a very significant decision and po- tentially a game-changer." For sure it reinforces the con- text-based approach that was en- visaged in the DC15, a document to which Zammit had contribut- ed along other architects. "When we were tasked with authoring this document, we wished it to be more than simply a revision of the previous DC07. We wished it to be an opportunity to introduce much-needed streetscape param- eters and guidance and a con- text-based approach to design." Crucially, according to Zammit, the court decision "qualifies build- ing height limitation to be the 'maximum' rather than the 'abso- lute', despite numerous planning decisions having always gone for the latter." Many previous decisions were based on building heights estab- lished in Annex 2 of DC15, which translated storey heights in the lo- cal plan to a height in metres. The local plans had already allowed 2-storey houses to be redeveloped into three-storeys-plus-basement and, even worse, three floors plus- semi-basement properties. In this sense one of the pos- itive impacts of DC15 was the elimination of semi-basements which were allowed in local plans. "The semi-basement killed our streets. It broke the horizontal rhythm and logic and created very poor-quality sunken spaces, often lacking adequate light and ventila- tion." DC15 aimed to reinstate the street by changing the semi-base- ment into a proper ground floor. Moreover, the change to metric heights did not change density. "If three floors-plus-semi-basement gave you four units, the four full floors also gave you that, so it was an equivalent density." The problem according to Zam- mit was the subsequent lower- ing of the internal height of each floor in the sanitary law, and "the bending and twisting of policies" in matters like the allowance to set-back parapet walls, that were never intended to be. Subsequent planning decisions rendered parts of the policies, intended as "checks and balances" to the Annex 2, ir- relevant as "one may today quote the physical commitment that has been granted previously on site rather than the policy." Context is key Zammit explains that Maltese planning law is based on a dis- cretionary system – meaning that plans and policies are not legally binding blueprints, but one may deviate from them as long as there are material considerations taken by the decision makers. "Context should be one such material con- sideration, even more so when considering the context-based approach that the most important national planning document, the SPED, promotes," he says. Context was also one of the pil- lars of DC15, a document meant to regulate and guide urban devel- opments. "We had a mix of poli- cies and design guidance to create a balance between strict param- eters from which one could not deviate and guidance that allowed more than one solution, so as not to limit architects' creativity and innovation." Unfortunately, design guidance has often been seen as secondary and, therefore, unnecessary. Pro- jects have rarely been properly assessed, and decided upon, in terms of their aesthetics and even less so in terms of their street con- text. Height limitation has been interpreted as an automatic giv- Urban planner and Studjurban founder and architect Antoine Zammit, one of the authors of the 2015 development control policy, delves into the implications of a landmark court decision to revoke a permit for a 5-storey block in a row of terraced houses in Santa Lucija Antoine Zammit