REFRAMING MATERIALITY IN DESIGN EDUCATION
SYMPOSIUM CHAIR
2025
Ann was invited to chair the opening symposium for the AA-ITBBambooLab Summer 2025 Workshop – part of the Architectural Association's Summer School workshops programme. The symposium challenged the societal attitudes and design conventions that shape contemporary design and impact use of non-Western materials – specifically bamboo. Highlighting case studies from bamboo growing regions such as Colombia and Indonesia, its content drew on the expertise of Dr Andry Widyowijatnoko, lecturer and researcher, Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB); Dr David Trujillo, lecturer at Warrick University; and Siti Balkish Roslan, Assistant Professor of Architecture at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU). The symposium explored the stigma and myths surrounding bamboo, especially full-culm bamboo, often dismissed as "poor man's timber" despite its strength, versatility, and sustainability. Sessions debated strategies to reform architectural pedagogy, moving beyond form-driven aesthetics and Eurocentric notions of building material legitimacy.
THE SACRED IN SUBVERSION
LECTURE & WRITING
2025
Building on fifteen years of sporadic research on Modernist landmarks as markers within Malta's nascent identity as an independent republic following the war, Ann gave a lecture on the history and influence of the Church of Manikata, Mġarr, Malta.
The lecture chronicled a series of interviews with Richard England, the building's architect, spanning from 2010 to 2025. It also discussed the role of subversion in the pursuit of manifesting the sacred in architecture, using Manikata as a nexus for broader considerations on the obedient versus the deferential in Malta's fuller lineage of architectural history.
Ann also contributed to the exhibition catalogue for a commemorative exhibitionmarking the 50th anniversary of Manikata's establishment as a parish church, held at the Malta Society of Arts between March and April 2025. For the catalogue, Ann interviewed England a final time, drawing focus to the architectural challenge of giving physical space to the insubstantiality of the divine.
BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER US: CASA BOTTEGA
WRITING
2024
Ann was the author for Before, during and after us: Casa Bottega – a publication for Chris Briffa Architects telling the story of one building, a studio-home, located within the density of the walled city of Valletta. The book, whose concept Ann developed around a meetings, archival searches and conversations with Briffa, his team and family, chronicles the intention, design and making of a living and working space for an architect's home and creative space.
From the townhouse's acquisition over several years, to its spatial and physiological re-organisation, meticulously introduced interventions, and the conjectural visions of its future life, the book contextualises the project within a wider narrative of St Paul's Street and the life of the city itself. The book delivers its story in two parallel narratives, one documenting the entire time-line of its design, construction, and occupation, the other charting one day in the life of the studio-home. Photography by Hanna Briffa visually parallels the description of detail, quality of materials, volumes, and light within its the townhouse's stacked rooms. The publication was published in November 2024 during an open house event at Casa Bottega.
PRIMER ON GROWTH AND INTERNATIONALISATION
WRITING
2024
Commissioned by the Architects’ Council of Europe, with support from Creative Europe, Ann authored the council's publication titled Guidance on the Organisational Structure of Architectural Practices in Europe: A Primer on Growth & Internationalisation. The study explored the challenges and opportunities faced by architectural practices wanting to grow and expand internationally. Drawing on data from nine practices across Germany, Greece, Malta, and Spain, the primer includes insights into business models, financial benchmarks, and organisational strategies tailored to varying practice sizes and ambitions. Its research highlights the critical factors influencing success in growth and internationalisation.
MALTA NATIONAL TRUST: ARCHITECTURE HERITAGE AWARDS
JUROR
2024-ONGOING
In 2024, Ann was made a juror for the annual Architecture Heritage Awards, organised by Din L-Art Ħelwa, Malta's National Trust – the oldest architectural awards scheme on the Maltese Islands. The awards recognise designs that focus predominantly on the conservation and re-invention of national built heritage. Over time, they have seen a growing capture of new heritage typologies, including the induction of industrial heritage buildings and small-scale masterplans.
The DLĦ Architecture Heritage Awards have evolved to include three major award categories: Regeneration of an Area; Rehabilitation and Adaptation of Existing Buildings; and Conservation and Restoration. Fellow jurors included Joanna Spiteri Staines, Godwin Vella and Andrea Bianco.
THE MYTH OF ABUNDANCE
CURATING & WRITING
2024-ONGOING
The Myth of Abundance is an ongoing research project on the history of water extraction and management in Malta. Working with AP Valletta, Ann works on curatorial development and writing for a project that is evolving and will unfold in different expressions of writing, installations and design provocations.
The project's research explores the paradox between Malta's natural water scarcity, and the misconceptions around its sourcing, management and distribution. In its varied formats, The Myth of Abundance will question the perception of surfeit, which persists while feeding deliberate environmental neglect. Its exploration will look into the shape and origins of the most expensive lie: that water thrives, and will thrive, endlessly.
VALLETTA ACCRA: A DIALOGUE BETWEEN MERCANTILE CITIES
EDITING, WRITING, CURATING
2023-24
Valletta Accra was a travelling research project where Ann worked as fellow researcher and writer alongside AP Valletta and Kojo Derban. The project – launched as part of Art Council Malta’s International Cultural Exchange funding stream – studied two capitals across two continents, each holding memory of colonial presence and its wielding of mercantile potential. Heritage fabric became a transcript for the evolving urban, social and economic life of two harbour cities – Accra, the capital of Ghana on the Guinea Coast of West Africa, and Valletta, the capital of Malta, an island in the Mediterranean. Both carry the imprint of their role as adopted trading strongholds. Their comparison served as a departure point for a deeper reading of both the colonial and post-colonial experience of the two capitals.
Valletta Accra launched its culminating publication on the 25th April at buro Ghana, introducing the full analysis of the project to the community in Accra. The publication's scope tallied with the wider project aim – to propose versions of heritage regeneration that have been nurtured by a close, critical reading of the heritage evolution of Valletta and Accra. The book unfolds in two parts: the first is a collection of four written and photographic essays; the second, a speculative design proposal for a heritage site – the Osu Salem Presbyterian Primary School – in Osu, Accra. This proposal was awarded at the Architectural Review Future Projects awards, named winner of the 'New Into Old' category and being highly commended within the overall competition.
Valletta Accra: a dialogue between mercantile cities has been published by Actar Published and is available as an e-book.
GĦALLIS
CURATION & WRITING
2023
Ann curated the exhibition GĦALLIS, a small-scale exhibition highlighting Malta's need for retrofit and a shift in focus for heritage conservation. The exhibition showcases a retrofit design for a coastal watchtower sited along the north-eastern shore of Malta called Torri tal-Għallis, built in 1658 by Grandmaster Martin De Redin of the Knights of the Order of St John. The retrofit proposal was designed by designed by Valentino Architects with Sumaya Ben Saad, Nigel Borg, Matthew Farrugia, Luca Zarb, and Tara Žikić, and culminates as nine new architectural elements that insert into the tower without permanent impact. The elements fall into three groups: primary, auxiliary and connecting, all of which are flexible, lightweight, translucent, and illuminable.
GĦALLIS explores the de-programming of architecture and how historic structures might be creatively adapted towards greater inclusiveness. The exhibition is open between May-November 2023 as part of the European Cultural Centre's Time, Space, Existence event.
SPACE MATTERS
COLUMNIST
2023-24
Ann authored Space Matters, a ten-part Times of Malta architecture column, discussing building and urban design and construction in Malta. Space Matters is the first regular series in Maltese media exclusively dedicated to criticism and investigation around the built environment. The column provided commentary around urban progression on the islands, directly interrogating topics such as construction methods and materials, urban planning, architectural education, the client-architect relationship, infrastructure, the natural environment, conservation, retrofit, and more.
LISTENING AS A METHODOLOGY
CO-WRITING
2022
Co-authored with Judith Stichtenoth, 'Listening as a Methodology, Longevity as a Goal' was written in the summer months of 2022 and published in the peer reviewed The Plan Journal. The essay explores the relationship between a group of design professionals, a community of residents, and a local council in the early stages of the Tustin Estate renewal project – a Master Plan and Phase One Regeneration for a south-east London post-war housing estate. Exploring the role of ballots in estate regeneration, the piece is built around three interviews with the development's key players - a representative from Southwark Council, the head of the project's engagement strategy, and a Tustin Estate resident. Collectively, the interviews and associated text explores approaches to building authentic engagement; the importance of community ownership; and how listening enables knowledge transfer and creates a blueprint for longevity.
FUSE
EDITING
2021
Ann edited the exhibition catalogue for fuse, a site-specific art project delivered by the Valletta Cultural Agency and curated by Elyse Tonna. The project was delivered as a collaborative visual arts and research project responding to the communities and contexts surrounding the Biċċerija area (Old Abattoir) building in Valletta, Malta.
THE SPACES THAT CONNECT US
WRITING & CO-CURATION
2019
In March 2018, Ann travelled with photographer Joanna Demarco and Mark Leonard to Green Bank, West Virginia – a small region in America, home to the world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope and a Wi-Fi free society. Following the group's fieldwork and research there, Ann wrote a literary non-fiction essay for The Spaces That Connect Us exhibition, a photographic and text-based study examining the day-to-day realities of an existence without constant connection. The project shed light on a hybrid way-of-life negotiating between a long-standing vocation to explore space and a contemporary human need to be connected. The exhibition was on display at Valletta Contemporary in Malta.
NOVELLETTA
COORDINATION
2010
Ann formed part of the curatorial team for AP's radical prophecy project, Novelletta, developed 2006 as a printed manifesto. The team expanded Novelletta into a three-dimensional experience in line with AP’s ambitions, activities and theoretical, academic and educational interests, focusing on themes related to the expansion of the city of Valletta, iterations of utopia, and alternate realities for the metropolis. Noveletta formed part of the London Festival of Architecture and was exhibited at The Building Centre, London.
