dewllings of faith (book #9)

Dwellings of faith by Archt. Sagara Jayasinghe

JAAL @ Maitland Crescent (cSLa #10)

Salon & Spa JAAL at Maitland Crescent, designed by architect Arosha Perera. This building used to be Archt. Pani Tennekoon's home.
Photos by Waruna Gomis

Anjalendran - Architect of Sri Lanka (book #8)

"Anjalendran - Architect of Sri Lanka" By Prof. David Robson

Photographs by Waruna Gomis. Published by TUTTLE BOOKS, Singapore.
The book is yet to be officially launched. Book launch date and venue will be notified in due course.

csa forum exhibition

CSA Forum (past students) Exhibition was held at Lionel Wendt Art Gallery concurrently with students work exhibition at CSA. (Photos: Waruna Gomis)

csa students exhibition for riba visitation

Here are some photos of the exhibition organised by the CSA (City School of Architecture, Colombo) for the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) visit. RIBA was invited by the CSA for this exploratory visit  in anticipation of RIBA  accreditation to the CSA. Exhibition is open to public from 22 to 25 of June. (Photos: Waruna)

miyazaki san and studio ghibli

Miyazaki san (Hayao Miyazaki) happens to be my favourite anime creator/director, not only because of his  fantastic hand drawn, almost surrealistic images but also due to his ability to bring out the child in you, no matter how old you are (most probably his hand drawn anime style is one of the reasons for it). And most of the time Miyazaki's  heroes and villains are not so black and white as we have gotten so used to see in western cartoons. 

And of course he creates these fantastic (architectural) spaces and viewing angles almost all the time!

Movies to watch: Laputa: Castle in the Sky, Spirited Away,  Howl's Moving Castle

Hayao Miyazaki Web

Miyazaki on WP

Studio Ghibli (Miyazaki san's studio)

cities for a small country, cities for a small planet (books #7)

#Cities For A Small Country by Richard Rogers, Anne Power
#Cities For A Small Planet by Richard Rogers
Two fantastic books. Books that base their ideas on facts. as expected the presentation of ideas and even statistics are very graphical (no, not 'graphical!').
'Cities For A Small Country' could be very relevant to S.L.
You can read a review here.

rammed earth roundup

image source http://www.rammedearthconstructions.com.au

Rammed earth at wikipedia

DIY Rammed Earth

rammed earth  at davis.net

rammed earth  at green spec

earthwall

LOOP @ Wattala (cSLa #9)

LOOP at Wattala by Archt  Shayan Kumaradas. Photos by Waruna Gomis, who as part of this assignment  is also trying to lick a spoon while holding the camera.

tangalle bay beach hotel (cSLa #8)

This gesture of poetic modernism on the Tangalle bay in southern shores of S.L is still looking good, even after all the harassments (renovations) she had to face. One of my favourite buildings. Though the floors are now covered with some deco tiles and much of the finer details are hidden under layers of coarse paint one can still see the true beauty of raw modernism. Exposed block walls and exposed timer shuttered sofits etc. are still visible.

Architects – Valentine Goonasekera and Chris De Saram 

යන්නෙ කොහෙද, මල්ලෙ පොල්

ඉන්ජිනෙරුවන් වෙනුවට වාස්තු විද්යඥයන් අනිවාර්ය කිරීමෙන් සැලසුම් ශිල්පීන්ගේ රැකියා අවස්ථා අහිමිවේ. මල කෙළියයි!

info thanks to [a]rchitectonics

feng shui and storage cupboards

What is next? Vastu and වැටකොලු?

See this post as well

kandy; belle ville

What a beautiful city? Note how that  fantastic  Kandyan Roof  responds to the context.

How to Make an Architect : The 7 year Curse from [a]rchitectonics

How to Make an Architect : The 7 year Curse from [a]rchitectonics
Check this out. This is good!

president goes 'green'

Read the news item of President Rajapakse's meeting with Professor M. S. Swaminathan who is considered as the 'Father of Green Revolution' in India. This is the kind of solid strategic thinking needed from the Sri Lankan leaders. While I have come across his name a few times before never had time to check him out on the web. Read about him on WP or you can visit his research foundation. 

Yes, I am  going off on a tangent here, but an interesting one.

original article on PRIU

Image from http://www.hindu.com

famous architectural locations in movies

Quickie. check this out.

This house in Woody Allen's Sleeper is the Sculptured House in Colorado, by Architect Charles Deaton

living on mars

'Living on mars'. Yes, it is bit out of fashion to talk about this particular subject these days, isn’t it? But I love it. Check out this simulation of mars habitat at ‘explore mars now’. Fantastic site.

Here are some more for those mars nuts out there.

mars foundation

the mars society

living on mars @ astrobiology mag

Integration of Plant Growth into a Mars Habitat

speech by Mok Wei Wei

Geoffrey Bawa memorial Lecture to commemorate Geoffrey's 100th birth anniversary was held at Foundation Institute on 30th May. This year the guest speaker was Singaporean architect Mok Wei Wei and true to his Singaporean style it was short, sweet and to the point. More importantly I could understand most if not all of it. He spoke about the challenges faced by architects due to Singapore's complicated and stringent building codes and how they could be adhered to while being creative.

This bring me to an issue I have been thinking for a while. I always thought that the more stringent (and of course meaningful) building codes would be more beneficial to the architects, both creatively and commercially. Creatively because, such regulations always allow them to play with a little bit open space here and a few meters of set back there even though they could be a nuisance (in fact, IMO one of the points highlighted i the lecture). commercially because more complicated they are there will be fewer and fewer people who could interpret them!

Geoffrey Bawa Commemoration Week

Mok Wei Wei

Building and Construction Authority (BCA), Singapore

toy factory @ Poruwadanda (cSLa #7)

Poruwamadala Toy Factory by Archt. Chinthaka Wickramage.  All photos by Chinthaka except the last one on the left which is by Waruna.

bhumi

DTCP (Department of town and Country Planning, University of Moratuwa) has launched their new research journal called ‘Bhumi (read: earth, land etc.) at a small ceremony held at the Uni. This was the result of an inattentive undertaken by Dr. Jagath Munasinghe (head of  TCP) and Plnr. P. K. Mahanama (Dean, Archi Fac).

Further info at  TCP Dept.

a new convention centre for Hambantota (cSLa #6)

New convention centre proposed for Hambantota.

“Hambantota Receives an Administrative Complex and an International Convention Centre with Assistance from Korea

The Government of Korea has agreed to provide a loan equivalent of US$ 20 million (Rs 2,000 mn) for the construction of an Administrative Complex in Hambantota. The total cost of the project is US$ 25 mn (Rs. 2,500 mn) of which US$ 5 mn (Rs. 500 mn) will be provided by the Government of Sri Lanka.

Most of the government offices in Hambantota District are at present located in private houses as the tsunami tidal waves destroyed a large number of government buildings. The objective of this project is to construct a four storied Administrative Complex in Hambantota District to provide office space for most of the Central, Provincial and Local Government institutions which are presently located in private buildings in a scattered manner around the city.

In addition to the Administrative Complex, the Government of Korea has agreed to provide financial assistance in grant aid equivalent of US$ 6 million (Rs. 600 mn) for the construction of an International Convention Centre." - SL Treasury news item


Aum & Lee Architects Associates, Keangnam Enterprises, Ltd, Urban Development Authority, Sri Lanka are involved in various capacities in consultancy and construction of this project.”