green over-kill

The 10 Dumbest Green Buildings on Earth. From LEED certified gas stations to the greenest of dubai.

Tree Hugger.com

Green building elements.com

And here are some green myths and truths to go with it...

Green is ugly – Some of them certainly are. But there are lot of things you can do in a ‘normal’ looking building to make it green.

Green buildings cost more – Again some of them actually do. Especially the ones you see in magazines. But greener buildings can be done at a reasonable cost. Studies show that initial design and construction costs account for only 2% of a building's life-cycle cost over 30 years. So a little bit more upfront can not only be greener but also can save a lot at the end. 

Green building should avoid wood – Wood is the only widely available construction material that is renewable and produced using solar energy.

Green buildings don't work – But they do. Don’t longer eaves minimise the heat gain in a building? 

Green is an all-or-nothing proposition – Wrong. May be your building is not ‘totally’ green, but still there are lot of greener measures you can incorporate in to your building.

Busted! Eight Green-Building Myths (www.hgtvpro.com)

Debunking the Green Building Myth (www.alternet.org)

Top 10 Green-Building Myths (www.healthcaredesignmagazine.com)

Green Building Myths (www.aeonmn.org)

'North by Northwest' & frank lloyd wright

Being a Alfred Hitchcock fan I couldn't by-pass this! Click the title to read this interesting article about how Hitchcock brought  a 'FLW house' in to the  movie set of  'North by Northwest'.

"NbNw" article

lunuganga (Book #4)

Here are some photographs of Geoffrey Bawa’s residence cum garden at Lunuganga from the archives of my mate Waruna Gomis.
Lunganga estate is managed by the Geoffrey Bawa Trust and part of it functions as a boutique hotel from December to April.
Archneton Geoffrey Bawa
Lunuganga  (The Book)
Photos by Waruna Gomis 

lanka’s "belly" for powering developement and for mitigating provincial disparities

Here are two articles published by Prof. Willie Mendis stressing the importance of developing Trincomalee as a ‘counterpoint’ to Colombo. This was an idea he has been professing for a very long while now.

Apart from issues relating to the physical development of the country there are very good socio – political reasons to have at least two big cities, even for a small country like Sri Lanka. Prof. Willie Mendis set forth the reasons for Trincomalee’s suitability to play the role of that second city which would counter balance the Colombo.

Article 1   Lanka’s "Belly" for powering developement and for mitigating provincial disparities by Prof. Willie Mendis (The Island 20/03/2009)

Article 2   The Thai Kra Canal - it’s strategic relevance for Lanka’s development by Prof. Willie Mendis (The Island 21/03/2009)

the life & work of an asian woman architect (book #3)

"ASIAN WOMAN Architect" was a term Minnette de Silva liked to apply to herself. It had a defiant and definitive ring about it in a male- dominated profession. The term was also used as the title of the book on her life and work, which is about to be published - posthumously now, just a few weeks after her death in Sri Lanka. It has been her main interest since she retired from practice in the early 1980s.

In 1948 she was elected an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects, the first Asian female architect to be admitted to its ranks. She was also the first trained female architect from Ceylon.

Quoted from The Independent, Dennis Sharp, Monday, 14 December 1998

@open Library