Design
Feature
C
ugó Gran Macina Grand Harbor
is a historic fortress that dom-
inated the port of the Maltese
city of Senglea. Built in 1554 by the
Knights of St. John, the Macina has
been a landmark for centuries. The
building was converted by DAAA Haus
into a luxury hotel over a period of 2
years, and completed in 2017. Today
it houses 21 suites, ranging from 40
to 130 square meters. The interiors
are characterised by clean and essential
lines, quality materials and designer
signature furniture pieces. Contempo-
rary design respects and enhances the
historical structure.
The common areas are intriguing, with
large vaulted ceilings, ample natural
light and open views of the harbour.
The minimal design of DAAA Haus has
created a refined environment in which
white and bare natural limestone walls
speak of volumes and exude elegance,
making it unique in the world.
Architecture, interior design, brand-
ing, artistic production: the sphere in
which the DAAA Haus creatives move is
extremely varied and the design (or, as
they like to call it, the creative process)
never takes off from the simple func-
tionality of the spaces, but from real
concepts that aim to offer people values
and an identity sense in which to recog-
nise themselves.
Founded in 2009 in Malta by creative
director Keith Pillow, DAAA Haus has
grown to accommodate 30+ young pro-
fessionals from different backgrounds,
from Maltese to Italian, from Serbs to
Irish, passing through India, Poland,
Spain and Tunisia. From their hetero-
geneity, ambitious projects were born,
such as Cugó Gran Macina Grand Harbor or
Rocksalt (2015), a 19th-century garage in
Sliema transformed into a modern and
chic café, the first DAAA Haus project to be
published in international magazines.
photo: Daaa Haus conveys
a chique, ‘jewellery shop’
look to this prestigious
Pasticceria in Milano.
stead, let’s go back to Italy with Anthea
Preziosi, an architectural project that
has reinterpreted a modern building in
the heart of Ragusa’s most important
shopping street and won local and in-
ternational awards.
The future
The studio
“Good design can make the world a
better place”: this is the belief that for
ten years has been guiding DAAA Haus,
a multidisciplinary architecture and
design studio with offices in Malta,
Milan, Ragusa and soon in India in
Mumbai, characterised by an approach
particular to the design.
Good design
can make the
world a better
place
Ten years of creative work
The creative versatility is also revealed
through the variety of the curated pro-
jects: with Sky Spirit, the studio in 2013
gave shape to a new approach to the in-
terior design of a fitness studio, while
in 2017 it realised its first Milanese
project, Bottone, a shop specialising in
cannoli but that looks like a jewellery
shop. In 2015, work began on a pro-
ject “Made in Sicily”: it is Vullo Estate, an
equestrian resort and spa that reinter-
prets the rooms of a historic building
owned by the client family since 1870
with contemporary taste and natural
materials.
On the occasion of the election of the
city of Valletta as European Capital of
Culture, the studio in 2017 presented
a number of boutique hotels in the city
amongst which is The Cumberland, a me-
ticulous restoration of a historic build-
ing turned into a boutique hotel. In-
There are also many future projects al-
ready in the pipeline, such as the par-
ticular residential project Haus Eleven,
a modern, minimal yet sophisticated
and high tech villa, but also several
large / medium sized hotels, such as the
Cavalieri Art Hotel and the Sketch Hotel, a
small 50-room modern building under
construction in front of the new Zaha
Hadid’s Mercury Tower in St.Julian’s.
The German Design Award
Called by the German Design Council,
which was founded in 1953 on the in-
itiative of the German Federal Parlia-
ment, the German Design Award is one
of the most important international
awards in the field of design and aims
to reward studios and designers who,
through their projects, contribute to
generating new developments and new
value within the industry of design.
https://daaahaus.com
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ISSUE 10
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