

Valletta – Accra
A Dialogue Between Mercantile Cities
David Kojo Derban, Ann Dingli, Guillaume Dreyfuss, Erica Giusta
Valletta Accra was launched in November 2023 as a travelling research project initiated by architecture firm AP Valletta with David Kojo Derban and Ann Dingli, as part of the Arts Council Malta’s International Cultural Exchange programme. The aim was to study two capitals across two continents, each holding memory of colonial presence and its wielding of mercantile potential. The team of researchers approached heritage fabric as a transcript of the evolving urban, social, and economic life of two harbour cities – Accra, the capital of Ghana on the West Africa, and Valletta, the capital of Malta, an island in the Mediterranean - both carrying the imprint of their role as adopted trading strongholds. The comparison of the two cities was positioned as a departure point for a deeper reading of both the colonial and post- colonial experience. In

Blueprint for a Hack
Leveraging Informal Building Practices
Vikram Bhatt, David Harlander, Susane Havelka
Over five days, some 60 residents of a northern village teamed with designers from southern Quebec to conceive and build an outdoor community pavilion that activates a central recreational area. "Blueprint for a Hack" aims to reimagine community spaces. Faced with extreme housing shortages, physical isolation, and a challenging climate, outdoor public spaces in northern communities remain largely undesigned and underused. These "in-between" spaces are strewn with stuff: plywood crates, tires, sea-cans, palettes, diesel fuel drums, etc.
Most housing and civic buildings in the communities emerge from and stand like physical markers of Euro-Canadian values. The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada has begun a discourse on design in northern Canadian communities, but discussions continue to dwell on housing and civic buildings. A strong need exists to open conversations about design and the public realm in northern villages, which this project tries to address,
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