TIFHEM: A Sunken Tolerance Center in Malta That Manufactures Its Own Rainbows

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This article was written by UNI Editorial and published on uni.xyz, a platform for design professionals and creative thinkers.

Q: What is "TIFHEM: A Sunken Tolerance Center in Malta That Manufactures Its Own Rainbows" about?

This article covers topics related to Landscape Design, Architecture, Innovative Architecture, Glass Architecture. A triangular Maltese site becomes an open plaza over two buried levels, where water, sunlight and curved glass paint shifting colour across rooms.

A triangular Maltese site becomes an open plaza over two buried levels, where water, sunlight and curved glass paint shifting colour across rooms.

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UNI Editorial published Results under Landscape Design, Architecture on Oct 28, 2026

Most buildings that carry a political message wear it on the façade. This one hides it underground and then lets the sun reveal it. In TIFHEM, the rainbow is not a flag painted on a wall. It is an optical event, produced on site, that appears only when light passes through water. The project calls itself a protolerance center, and it argues that tolerance works the same way: you cannot hang it up, you have to create the conditions for it to appear.

TIFHEM, a Protolerance Center on Malta by Ksawery Marszalek, was named Winner at Conquer. The scheme claims a sharp triangular urban plot and pushes almost the entire program below grade. The top of the building becomes a public plaza, and a single oval void connects the city above to the community spaces beneath.

A Triangular Plot Turned Into a Roof Everyone Can Walk On

The exploded axonometric reads like a manifesto. Its left column lists ten verbs, each paired with a slice of the plan: destroy the wall, look inside, get carried away, meet, eat, get support, find out, express yourself, have fun, feel safe. The sequence runs from the most public gesture at the top to the most intimate need at the bottom, and the architecture follows that order. The plaza level is a flat, open deck scattered with circular openings. Below it, a café and support rooms wrap the oval void. At the lowest level sit the exhibition and event spaces. The thinking is legible: anyone can cross the roof without committing to anything, and every step down is a choice.

This matters because of who the building is for. The project material rejects the idea of a center reserved for a single group, on the grounds that a dedicated enclave can stigmatise the people it means to protect. Instead, the center is open to everyone regardless of age, gender, origin or orientation. Burying the program beneath a public square is the spatial version of that argument. There is no threshold to be seen crossing, only a plaza that slowly invites you downward.

Exploded axonometric diagram of a triangular building showing the lattice roof, plaza level and two lower floors, with activity icons listed down the left side. Image: Ksawery Marszalek

A Canopy That Produces Colour From Sunlight and Water

Above the oval void floats a lattice roof on thin poles, rippling like a cloth caught in wind. According to the project, it carries iridescent panels for shade and sprinklers that release fine specks of water over the courtyard below. In Malta's intense sunlight, that suspended mist refracts light into rainbows. The rendering of the plaza captures the effect well: a hazy band of pink, violet and green hovers over the deck while people stroll beneath it as if it were weather.

The choice of water is not decorative. The project notes that Malta is hot and lacks consistent rivers, and that living things have always gathered around water sources. The canopy becomes a man-made spring of sorts: a cool, misty patch in a dry city that draws people in for the simplest of reasons before the building has said anything about identity at all.

Open rooftop plaza with a rainbow-tinted canopy on thin poles and visitors strolling across the paved deck under a hazy sky. Image: Ksawery Marszalek

Curved Glass, a Sunken Ring and Skylights That Pull the Sky Down

Down one level, the oval void becomes a courtyard enclosed by curved glass. A corridor bends along it, with doors to support rooms set into stone walls on one side and the open court on the other. At the courtyard's centre, a sunken circular seating ring gives people a place to gather without a stage or a front row. The rippling canopy remains visible through the glazing, so even underground you never lose track of the sky. Light reflected off the curved glass scatters across the stone floor in soft, shifting patches.

The café borrows the same strategy at a larger scale. Oval skylights, described in the project as milk glass, are cut into a sandy ceiling and wash the round tables in diffused daylight. The curved glazing at the far end opens the room to the courtyard, making the dining hall feel less like a basement and more like a shaded arcade. The material palette is deliberately local: the project specifies limestone, Malta's traditional building stone, with light slabs carried on internal walls and thin glass surfaces between them.

Curved corridor beside a sunken circular seating ring, a child playing with balls and a rippling roof canopy visible through the glass. Image: Ksawery Marszalek

Café hall with round tables and wooden chairs, diners and walkers beneath large oval skylights cut into a sandy ceiling. Image: Ksawery Marszalek

A Gallery Under a Round Skylight That Changes Purpose After Dark

The lowest level holds the most expressive room. A gallery with soft, curving walls carries painted murals, framed prints and colourful sculptures on low plinths, while a giant pair of blue-legged figure dominates one corner. A round skylight, aligned with the court above, drops a pool of light into the centre of the floor. The project frames this space as a place where anyone can present their own work, from drawings and paintings to installations and music, so that art is a form of communication rather than a curated display.

The material also describes this hall doubling as a nightclub after sunset, and imagines the center being used around the clock. That ambition is what turns the buried section from a refuge into a destination. A space that hosts exhibitions by day and parties by night gives young people, in particular, a reason to come that has nothing to do with needing help, which in turn makes it easier to ask for help when they do.

Gallery interior with a giant blue-legged figure, colorful sculptures on plinths and framed prints, visitors walking across a grey floor beneath a round skyligh. Image: Ksawery Marszalek

Why This Project Matters

TIFHEM shows how a social program can be translated into section rather than slogan. By placing the public realm on the roof and layering more private functions below, the scheme lets people approach on their own terms, moving from watching to meeting to belonging at whatever pace feels safe. The ten verbs in the axonometric are not just a diagram caption; they map directly onto floors, rooms and thresholds.

Its strongest move is turning a symbol into a phenomenon. The rainbow here is fragile and conditional, dependent on sun, water and the angle of curved glass, and it moves across the building over the course of the day. That is a more honest image of tolerance than any painted stripe: something that must be maintained, that appears where conditions allow it, and that belongs to everyone standing underneath.