Openworkstudio

Openworkstudio is an architecture practice in Ta' Xbiex that offers architecture, interior design, master planning, restoration consultancy and environmental design under one roof. Its work runs from large schemes to small interventions, and from homes to commercial buildings, with a team that follows each job from first concept through to final finishes on site. In our directory it appears among the architects in Malta and the interior designers in Malta.

The practice often goes by the short name OWS, and in 2026 it marked ten years in business. It is a useful name to know if you are buying an old Maltese property that needs careful handling, planning a villa with sea views or commissioning an interior from the UK.

Who they are and how they work

Every project is shaped by four values: collaboration within the team and with clients, a sense of responsibility towards context, real sensitivity to heritage, and an environmentally conscious approach. The partners describe a diverse team that combines research, ingenuity and analysis, and that is willing to question a brief before answering it.

Four partners founded the studio: Alberto Miceli-Farrugia, Joanna Spiteri Staines, Debby De Domenico and Greta Caruana Smith. Alberto is an architect who graduated from Cambridge, is registered with the Architects Registration Board in the UK and is a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, which will reassure British clients. He also tutors on the master's programme at the University of Malta. Joanna trained in architecture and then in restoration in Rome and at University College London, and she directs a sister office, NIDUM, which pursues urban regeneration and public projects.

Debby leads the interior design department and has long experience of remodelling old buildings, while Greta is a structural engineer and environmental specialist who leads structural design and assesses how well a building envelope performs. The wider team includes architects with backgrounds in conservation, urban economics, retail design and sustainable construction, an office administrator, and Toby, a certified search-and-rescue dog who serves as the office mascot.

Restoration and adaptive reuse

Heritage is where the studio stands out. Its portfolio includes the restoration of an early eighteenth-century noble residence in Attard, completed in 2026, and the careful reworking of a historic courtyard house in the same village, finished in 2020, where a citrus garden was reconnected with the house and a pool was added without breaking the garden's formal layout. Floors were relaid over underfloor heating, timber roofs and stone mouldings restored and air conditioning hidden in cupboards.

In Valletta it has converted a long-abandoned maisonette, reorganising fragmented rooms to bring in light, and reused a historic bastion to hold offices and a home. A late nineteenth-century monastery has also been revived through conservation and adaptive reuse. If these buildings tempt you to explore, our Valletta guide and guide to the Knights of Malta describe the history behind them, and the Mdina guide covers another of the island's best-preserved historic centres.

Commercial, public and urban projects

The practice has transformed the 1950s Simonds Farsons Cisk brewery at Mrieħel into a visitor experience with a rooftop bar and a flexible event space called The Grist, and it designed a cantilevered chapel and staff canteen for the same company. The rooftop bar, completed in 2022, won the commercial interiors category at the 2022 Malta Architecture and Spatial Planning Awards and was shortlisted at the World Architecture Festival in Singapore.

On a larger scale, the studio has worked on Dock 1, which reconnects the Cottonera waterfront with public squares and landscaped routes. The area belongs to the harbour towns in our Three Cities guide. Other urban work includes a regeneration proposal for Marsaskala, a garden proposal made with its sister office, a housing project that supports inmate reintegration and a proposed canopy and portico for the airport. If you are flying in, our guide to flights to Malta shows the routes from the UK. NIDUM, the sister office, also won the international competition for the Gozo museum, where Joanna is artistic director; our Gozo guide covers the island.

Two projects in more detail

The staff chapel and canteen at the brewery, completed in 2018, tackled a tricky brief: a lively dining hall and a place of quiet contemplation side by side, in a working industrial yard. Because the space at the base of the building was only large enough for the canteen, the chapel was cantilevered from the side of the building above. The design drew on gothic interiors for its light, sound and warmth, with a restricted palette of materials, dark timber floors and a slatted soffit set against retained concrete. The canteen below is deliberately simple, with a south-facing terrace that looks towards Mdina.

The Attard courtyard house shows the studio's research habit. The team studied family archives, found a valuation from 1926 and used it to understand how the house had grown in the early nineteenth century. The house stands about fifty metres from the parish church and sits beside roughly 1,200 square metres of citrus garden. The solution removed a tower-like addition and left the old garden wall largely intact, opening a route through to a baroque garden of orange and lemon trees laid out in four quadrants. Old terrazzo was lifted and relaid, and the grander rooms gained modern comforts while keeping their concealed passages.

Homes, interiors and gardens

Residential work includes a villa that arranges private and public spaces over two levels, joined by glazed walls, courtyards and terraces that frame views of the sea, as well as a hill-top pool pavilion with garden, a restored two-storey villa in a historic cluster and a three-bedroom home in Mellieħa with bespoke joinery and soft neutral tones. Because interior design sits inside the practice, a client can brief one team on the building, the furniture, the fittings and the finishes.

The same studio that restores a palazzo can also lay out a modern kitchen, so owners moving from the UK need not coordinate several firms. Climate shapes the choices: shade, daylight, glazing and thermal performance all matter, and our Malta weather guide shows why.

Recognition, research and publications

The studio has been commended and recognised in national and international awards, and Joanna was given the President's Award by the Malta Architecture and Spatial Planning Awards in 2025. The partners lecture and write: the news pages record talks at conferences, a lecture series on the Grand Harbour, visits to the Gozo museum site with a cultural jury and contributions to professional reviews. Greta is carrying out research on alternative building materials, and Alberto and Karl, one of the conservation architects, both teach at the University of Malta.

That research habit is worth noting if you are weighing up which practice should look after an older or more complex property.

The news pages also show the studio taking part in the wider cultural life of the island: team visits to a contemporary art museum, a talk on telling untold stories at an international conference in Malta, and a published reflection on modernist buildings given new uses. For a client, this suggests a practice that stays curious, keeps learning from other disciplines and brings that thinking back into the work on your own building. Several team members tutor or lecture at the University of Malta, which keeps the office close to new ideas and to the next generation of architects.

Visiting the studio and starting a project

The office is at 3 Melita House on Sir Augustus Bartolo Street in Ta' Xbiex and is open Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 18:00. Ta' Xbiex is a calm marina district close to Gżira and Valletta, so it is easy to combine a meeting with sightseeing. Our guide to things to do in Malta has ideas.

If you are planning a permanent move, the Malta relocation guide and the overview in about Malta cover the practicalities. To describe your property or idea, use the VisitMalta.co.uk enquiry form on this page and we will pass your message to the studio.