Students have more to offer
Students’ projects are of a higher quality than the actual projects being built up around Malta, said Prof. Alex Torpiano, dean of the Faculty for Built Environment. He spoke at this week’s Architecture Student Expo and encouraged the students present to be the change Malta’s built environment needs.
Thomas Mifsud, who is currently KSU Public Relations Officer and was President of SACES, proposed an initiative which would bring students’ projects deserved recognition. This initiative resulted in what was the success of this week’s Architecture Student Expo. The expo was usually organized by SACES and featured only theses and dissertations. This year, however, it featured work from all years and branches of the Faculty for the Built Environment and served a higher purpose than a simple exposition of students’ work.
Beyond an expo of students’ work
The goal of the expo is to create a direct link between the public, professionals, stakeholders, decisions makers and the student community. In fact, the initiative received full support from the Dean of the Faculty, Prof. Alex Torpiano, a number of NGOs including Din L-Art Helwa, Heritage Malta and the Malta Chamber of Architects and the respective ministries for Education and Employment, Infrastructure and Transport, and Environment and Sustainability.
Architecture and Civil Engineering students have spent thousands of hours working on modern-day solutions for the dire current state of Malta’s built environment. Yet, these solutions go unnoticed and many students feel as if their work was done in vain. Whilst students are coming up with creative and passionate projects, similar projects are being taken up on a national scale with much less enthusiasm and the results are subpar, to say the least.
The expo is open from Wednesday 9th October till Sunday 13th October at various opening times and is held at the Old War Museum in Valletta.