Mercury Spa by DeeSpas

A spa below ground, warmed with light

For Dee Spas’ flagship location, I photographed their spa inside Mercury Towers, built around the restored shell of Mercury House – a 1903 building that served as an underground communications control centre during WWII before sitting derelict for over twenty years. Zaha Hadid Architects folded it into the base of what’s now Malta’s tallest tower, keeping the original façades at their historic height rather than clearing them away.

The spa itself sits below ground with no natural light at all, so I worked with a blend of the space’s own practical fixtures and my own artificial lighting, layering warmth into it rather than trying to fake daylight that was never going to be there. The original Maltese floor tiles survived the restoration and run throughout the space, alongside genuine limestone vaulting that reads rich and considered rather than heavy. The set moves through the full space — the relaxation lounges under those stone vaults, reception, the spa bar, and into the treatment rooms, single and couple’s. The most iconic space is the pool: a water cistern that’s part of the original structure rather than something dug out for the project. It’s the one place in the whole spa where the building’s underground history is something you can actually see, not just something you’re told.