Paceville building collapse: Architect who certified building as safe hired to probe its collapse

In its frenzy to try to understand what happened, following the latest building collapse in Paceville, the government’s regulator – the Building and Construction Agency (BCA) – did not even realise that one of the architects it tasked to conduct an ‘independent inquiry’ was the same who had certified the collapsed building as safe and sound just a few years earlier.

The Shift is informed that the BCA CEO, Roderick Bonnici, immediately issued two instructions as soon as the massive Tania flats collapsed into a mound of rubble.

The first task was to assign the former President of Din l-Art Helwa, Alex Torpiano, and government consultant Robert Musumeci with conducting an on-site independent inquiry to determine what actually happened and who was to blame.

The other was a lucrative direct order to Faceworks – a subsidiary of Famalco Group – to do all works of site clearance and ‘controlled demolition’, costing hundreds of thousands.

However, the CEO somehow missed the information he already had in internal files: that one of the architects he commissioned was the same architect who, five years earlier, had certified the same building as structurally safe.

When contacted, Prof Alex Torpiano told The Shift that although he initially accepted the BCA’s brief, he later recognised a conflict of interest and promptly withdrew.

“I was called to the site after the BCA assigned me the task. However, upon my arrival, I realised that I had a conflict and informed the CEO that I could not take on the assignment,” Torpiano explained.

Robert Musumeci, a government consultant for many years, is currently leading the inquiry.

The BCA CEO has not yet provided an explanation as to how it was possible that no one at the BCA knew that Torpiano had a conflict before he was given his assignment.

In 2020, following a dispute between two architects—Chris Mintoff and Wallace Farrugia—on the soundness of Tania Flats, particularly on whether the old building could withstand the load of an additional penthouse, Alex Torpiano was engaged to do an analyses.

Dismissing Mintoff’s opinion that the building could not withstand Architect Farrugia’s additional penthouse, Tropiano concluded that “the current walls can carry the additional loads.”

Last week, following the collapse, Torpiano clarified that his report was not a theoretical study but an analysis of how strong the ground-floor walls were to withstand the load at the time.

Architect Farrugia, who built the penthouse on top of Tania Flats, is also a director of High Point Ltd, the developer.

Meanwhile, the BCA CEO is refusing to answer questions on how he engaged Faceworks to carry out the site clearance and who will be paying the massive costs. Despite reminders, Bonnici did not reply.

BCA sources told The Shift that the costs would probably run into hundreds of thousands, and the BCA was paying for them so far.