With a constant reshaping of its history, the dockyard has been a landmark that has symbolized a social separation within Cottonera. The site was at this point, walled off to the public, and therefore for any regeneration to commence, both physically and socially, the removal of barriers to the waterfront was of utmost importance.

The proposed Dock 1 Project became a critical nodal link in achieving the sustainable regeneration of the whole area and therefore in 2008 the Government of Malta adopted the landscaping phase of the Architecture Project’s (AP) masterplan for the area. Alberto Miceli Farrugia, ex-Director at AP led this project during his time there before moving on to Openworkstudio and Nidum.

The Creek proposal merges Senglea’s and Vittoriosa’s waterfronts with open public spaces while celebrating the context of the industrial heritage of the dockyard it finds itself in. The public spaces around it represent a series of nodes that communicate directly with both the waterfront and street-level promenade; creating tiny pockets of public yet personal spaces with a series of elements and typologies that recall the dockyard’s long industrial identity.

The Dock 1 project produces an opportune space, with its squares and open spaces, to host social and cultural events, becoming one of Malta’s prime public cultural spaces, appealing to the locals as well as other cultural visitors. The project also includes NEPTUME (No-Discharge Energy-Efficient Prototype for the Treatment of Urban Municipal Effluent), which is a research project done in collaboration between AP, the Biology Department at the University of Malta, Argotti Botanical Gardens, and the Water Services Corporation (WSC).

NEPTUME is a wastewater treatment plant that purifies municipal waste from local sources. This filtered wastewater is now fit for use as irrigation for the surrounding vegetation and landscape. The Dock 1 landscape project has been in the making for a long time. Through dialogue with the local councils, local businesses, traders, and NGOs, the project reads, as it should: A relative design for the needs of a community and area that for decades has suffered a decline in prosperity.

As stated before, the social and physical embellishment of the Dock 1 area is only but a part of a greater sustainable regeneration of this strangely unique portion of Malta’s identity.