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Sri Lanka (Field Study and Design Studio)

Instructor: Kapila D. Silva
Email: kapilads@uwm.edu
 

In Spring 2006, you—students at SARUP—had an excellent opportunity to question your worldview in general, and architectural thinking in particular, by conceiving a design project for a group of people with traditions, needs, and aspirations so different from yours, which would help you become socially-responsible and globally-aware professionals in the process.

With this intention, we had created a design studio that investigated the approaches to culture-specific design of urban and residential environments, using the serendipitous island of Sri Lanka as its context.

In the first two weeks of January 2006, we explored the cultural landscape of Sri Lanka—its historic and contemporary trends in architecture as well as other dimensions of life. These two weeks included field visits, urban analysis, site surveys, and design research in preparation for the ARCH 645/845 Studio in Spring 2006. This tour gave a better understanding of the evolution of Sri Lankan architecture over a period of 2500 years, cutting across pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial periods. The lectures covered the Buddhist and Hindu philosophies that shaped the culture, settlements, and buildings during the pre-colonial era, the manner in which the colonial (western) era shaped the urban environment and buildings, and how those historic experiences have shaped the architecture and urban environment today.

The Design Studio had two projects—a design of an urban public space (place and program of your choice) and design of a housing scheme, either for a socially-marginalized community of Tea Plantation Laborers, or for a tsunami-affected community of fishermen. We read, discussed, and reflected on how best we can understand the culture of a community and the relation of culture and the built environment in order to design culture-specific urban and residential environments that transcend mere emulation of architectural tectonics of that culture. We also explored design of a house-unit that functions as a core that will ‘grow’ without much damage to its original architectural form while being culturally, individually, and environmentally responsive.

 

This studio was open to both undergraduate and graduate students. You must have had enrolled in both the UWinteriM Tour (Arch: 534 Field Study – 3 credits) and Spring Studio (Arch: 645/845: Studies in Urban & Community Design Theory – 6 credits).