Traffic Island is an installation and public event focusing on a site consisting of two sections: one is used as a boatyard, and the other is rarely used by resident neighbours as a shortcut and meeting place.
The site is a de-facto traffic island opposite Birzebbuga’s main breakwater, it was built in the late 1960’s to create a safe mooring space for small boats. Dawret Il-Qalb Imqaddsa, a main coastal road separates the site from the water. It surrounded by car parking on most of its border. Entrances, windows and balconies of residential houses, some used as holiday-houses, overlook the site and the bay behind it.
The project materialised into 3 distinct interventions that help highlight a function on the site that rewards sharing of public space between residents, fishermen and visitors.
Local stone reclaimed from construction waste used to build a terraced seating space and table with embedded planters, upcycled locally sourced material also used in a decorative fishing net canopy painted mint green to visually tie the intervention to the vernacular colour palette.
A multipurpose Tool Box Trailer designed for the local fisherman's club with tool lockers, a foldable work bench to help with their boat maintenance work and a double sided bar, for community activities that the fishermen themselves organise.
Foldable wooden extensions attached to a railing that provides both a place to sit and enjoy the sea view as well as serve as possible tool shelving for the fishermen mending their boats in the yard below. This intervention encourages the chance encounter between the two communities making use the space.
@David Mallia
@Zachi Razel
Team :
Kerem Halbrecht, Gilly Karjevski, Mattea Ciantar, Samuel Ciantar, Thrisianne Busuttil, Francesca Lanzon, Rafael Pascual-Leone, Jonas Korten, Zachi Razel, Victor Amé Navarro, Esther Bonneau, Maciej Tymorek, James Brazil, Caldon Mercieca, Andrea Stegani, Tania Pulis Simpkin, Ann Laenen and Albert Dimech.