Naxxar House Within Malta’s Walls: A Screened Home in Light
Naxxar House sits in Naxxar, Malta, where AP Valletta recasts an 18th-century palazzino as a contemporary house. The architects add a sculpted stone screen to guard privacy from a new apartment block while opening the interiors to gardens. Completed as a 2023 reworking, the project folds local craft, reclaimed materials, and measured light into a lived-in domestic setting. It feels grounded and quietly sure of itself.
Late sun grazes pale stone, and the new screen throws long, angled shadows across the courtyard. From the street, tall folded walls read as a measured rhythm of solids and voids, pulling privacy close while keeping the light alive inside.
This is a house reworked in Naxxar, Malta, where AP Valletta extends an 18th-century palazzino for contemporary living. The project leans on local material and craft to mediate a tight urban condition and the memory of nearby defensive towers. Old and new meet through stone, proportion, and a choreographed play of shadow.
Raise the Screen
A series of tall, folded walls rises along the one‑storey wing to shield the home from the apartment block opposite. Built in locally quarried Maltese softstone by craftsmen, the screen thickens the threshold and sets a protective edge to the street.
Angles and spacing shift from bay to bay, echoing the cadence of historic battlements without mimicry. The result reads robust at a distance and precise at the hand, a contemporary intervention rooted in place.
Play With Shadow
Light and shade are tuned, not accidental. Each fin is set to cast specific shadows during the day, tempering glare while holding the house’s quiet interior atmosphere.
As sun moves, the façade becomes a slow clock of lines and voids, privacy held steady even as brightness shifts. The street sees depth and order; the inside keeps calm air and filtered views.
Rework the Rooms
Inside, rooms are reconfigured to connect directly to gardens, historic stone walls, and Mediterranean fruit trees. Circulation loosens, drawing daily life toward the outdoors and back again.
The former loggia, once a farm shelter for animals, now anchors the living area as the social heart. It aligns with an outdoor dining zone and the pool, setting a short, clear route between cooking, gathering, and a swim.
Salvage and Stitch
Reclaimed stone slabs return underfoot, their worn surfaces tying new rooms to the palazzino’s past. This reuse is neither decorative nor nostalgic; it is structural continuity and texture under daily steps.
New work meets old fabric cleanly, with junctions kept legible. The house reads as one composition, its materials breathing the same dry Mediterranean air across thresholds and terraces.
Evening brings cooler air and longer shadows across the folded screen. The house settles into its garden, its softstone edges holding light and privacy in an easy balance. Nothing shouts. The craft holds steady, and the rooms answer with quiet use.
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- by Matt Watts
