Best nursing home housing design for Global Awards shortlisted
LOS ANGELES: The shortlist for the best nursing home design has been declared.
Over 250 designs have been considered by the awards secretariat. One of the finalists in this category is shown above.
The Planning Authority has given its blessing to controversial plans to build a nursing home instead of a disused chicken farm in a rural area between Għargħur and Naxxar after revised plans reduced the maximum height from 11.3 metres to 9.7m.
The building’s massing has effectively remained unchanged, with the reduced height largely achieved by digging deeper. The landscaping plan also appears to include more trees, with the developers exploiting this to minimise the apparent visual impact of the photomontage: which shows fully-mature trees even though none have yet been planted.
The application was presented by Marlon Brincat, a Naxxar local councillor representing the Labour Party: the only dissenting vote on Thursday came from his colleague, mayor Anne Marie Muscat Fenech Adami, on behalf of the council.
The site is accessible from a narrow rural path, Sqaq l-Imnieqa, that is not actually accessible to fire engines and to regular garbage trucks.
But the developers obtained the necessary clearances after agreeing an alternative arrangement on fighting potential fires with the Civil Protection Department, and after reaching an agreement to have smaller garbage truck service the care home.
Even so, the plans were deemed strongly objectionable by nearby residents, who highlighted increasing traffic and parking problems in the area, and who insisted that Sqaq l-Imnieqa was nevertheless not suited as the access to a nursing home.
A decision was set to be made on the project on 16 November, but the Planning Board deferred its decision in light of concerns about the project’s visual impact. And a 1.6m reduction in the maximum height ultimately proved to do the trick.
The revisions did not address other concerns raised by objectors, including NGO Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar, who accused the authority of interpreting planning policies selectively to justify development.
In this case, they argued that the authority failed to consider that the site lay in a Strategic Open Gap, thus considered to be a visually important location “offering a brief respite from the monotone visuals of heavily urbanised landscapes.” Presumably, the new care home will now offer a brief respite from the monotone visuals of open countryside.
The Global Award winner will be announced in November in London. (Globals)