Greater Malé RegionAbout
About this book
Design VI, 2026 · BAAD students, FEST, Maldives National University
The book
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Title of book | Greater Malé Region: Site Analysis and Masterplans |
| Book series | Island Profile and Masterplan Studio |
| Book number | Book 1 of 1 (class volume) |
| Islands studied | Malé, Villimalé and Hulhumalé |
| Region | Greater Malé Region, Maldives |
| Nature of study | Field-based analytical site study, shared toolkit research and masterplanning |
| Program of study | ARC307 Architectural Design Project 6, Bachelor of Architecture and Design (BAAD) |
| Institution | Maldives National University (MNU), Faculty of Engineering, Science and Technology (FEST) |
| Field study and production team | Sem VI 2026: 31 students in three groups (Malé, Villimalé, Hulhumalé) |
| Year of field study | 2026 |
| Year of publication | 2026 |
Editor's introduction
A note from the editor-in-chief
When the brief landed at the start of the semester, we knew the book would be the hardest part. Three groups, three islands, three ways of working, and one volume that had to read as if a single studio wrote it. Being our last semester, we also wanted it to be the best book we had made.
So we treated it like a project of its own. We formed an editorial team with member from each group, assigned roles, and kept a Gantt chart that more than a few of us grew tired of seeing. We agreed early on a shared template, typeface, colour system and a common way of presenting the numbers, so that a land-use table from Malé could sit next to one from Hulhumalé and be read the same way.
What surprised us most was how differently the three islands answered the same questions. Malé is old and organic, still shedding the weight of its port. Villimalé is quiet and green, with a pace you feel the moment you step off the ferry. Hulhumalé is planned from scratch, and still working out what kind of city it wants to be. Read side by side, each explains something the others cannot.
This book is for anyone who lives in, plans or simply cares about the Greater Malé region: students, practitioners, and the people whose neighbourhoods appear on these pages. We hope they take from it that our cities are not fixed. They were shaped by decisions, and they can be reshaped by better ones. The evidence is here, counted, mapped and walked, so those decisions can be made with open eyes.
To the whole team: thank you for the long hours, the version numbers, and the patience it takes to reformat someone else’s table for the fourth time. This book exists because you kept three groups talking to each other. It belongs to all of us.
The editor
How to read
The book has three chapters, and the same island colours run through all of them. Chapters 01 and 03 follow the islands one after another. Chapter 02 follows the toolkit, one theme at a time.
Each island keeps its own colour on every map, graph and heading: Malé,Villimalé,Hulhumalé. Issues found in Chapter 02 are answered in Chapter 03.
On this site, the island names at the top of every page keep you on the same section and change the island. Compare shows that section for all three, side by side.
Methodology
Malé, Villimalé and Hulhumalé are three islands of one urban region. Three groups studied them in the same way, so that what each island shows can be set against the other two: one reading stage, one shared toolkit, one masterplan brief. Each stage below feeds the next, and each ends in a chapter of this book.
- 1 Read Part 1A Each group reads one text closely and turns it into two field instruments. Perth 2009, Sim, Gehl. Introduction
- 2 Macro Part 2A The whole island, from secondary sources: maps, imagery, planning data, historic records. Catchment to parking. Chapter 01
- 3 Micro Part 2A One walkable area of about 10–12 ha. All six instruments used on site by every group. Fieldwork, not desk research. Chapter 02
- 4 Design Part 2B About 4 ha of dormant land redeveloped. About 8 ha of organic fabric rejuvenated with minimum intervention. One masterplan. Chapter 03
The three groups
Each group read one text and turned it into two field instruments. All three groups then used all six on site.
The Malé group
- Source text
- Perth 2009: Public Spaces and Public Life
- Instrument A
- Land Use and Building Scale Survey
- Instrument B
- Activity, Comfort and Safety Observation Survey
- Masterplan
- Fahi-Malé
The Villimalé group
- Source text
- Sim, Soft City: Building Density
- Instrument A
- Density and Housing Quality Assessment
- Instrument B
- Layering vs Stacking
- Masterplan
- Villi-Veshi
The Hulhumalé group
- Source text
- Gehl, Cities for People
- Instrument A
- Walking Activity and Movement Count
- Instrument B
- Public Space Quality Checklist
- Masterplan
- Hiyaa-Vehi
Acknowledgements
Our deepest appreciation goes to the residents of Malé, Villimalé and Hulhumalé for their openness and willingness to share what they know of their islands. The older residents who spoke to us about how these places looked and felt in earlier decades gave this study a memory that no map could.
We are sincerely grateful to our lecturers for their continuous guidance, challenge and encouragement from the first reading to the final masterplan. Their direction shaped how we learned to read an island, and then how to design for it.
We thank the authors whose work gave us our methods: the City of Perth, David Sim and Jan Gehl. Their texts became the six instruments that all three groups used on site.
We also thank every member of the three groups for their dedication and collective effort. Three islands were studied by one studio, with one toolkit, and this book is the result of that shared work.
This study was a chance to learn, to walk, to count and to question. It deepened our understanding of how Greater Malé is changing, and how its older and newer neighbourhoods can be made to work together.
The Sem VI 2026 studio