Intently hidden swp lodge kandy

In an article titled “Synecdoche, Kandy” - published in the 115th volume of The Architect magazine (Oct-Dec 2014) - this writer brought to light some growing concerns about recent morphological transformations taking place in the historic city of Kandy. The main criticism raised by the above article targeted Kandy’s eradicating building culture, which has resulted in poorly-conceived buildings with little or no regard to the city’s historic meaning, environmental context, technological possibilities, social responsibilities and spatial opportunities.

The article further claimed that the destruction caused by this building culture is so irreversible, that unless precautions are taken against poor constructional practices, “the formal quality and cultural life of Kandy will soon be a nostalgic memory of the past”. A city’s building culture is organized, defined and distributed – both technically and intellectually – by means of local factors of production such as labour, capital (including tools and materials) and processes that breed local knowledge structures, skill bases and training mechanisms. Urban development and city building, in such a context, must not be seen as mere tasks of large-scale zoning proposals or infrastructure planning alone. On the contrary, attempts must be made to restructure the organization, application and internal links of various people and processes that make up the local building industry – because, as the above article claimed, it’s only within this scale that the rationale and means of action for proper ‘city building’ can be found and possibly activated (Pathiraja, 2014). 

Over the past four years since the publication of the above article, the situation in Kandy has moved from bad to worse. On the one hand, Kandy’s historically-significant physical fabric is being drastically altered by unplanned growth of tourism-related activities and the subsequent proliferation of poorly-conceived and environmentally-undesirable building units. In the commercial streets spanning the city’s business centre, facades made of aluminium composite panels and glass claddings have become the practice to follow, thereby normalizing the once much-celebrated grandeur of Kandy’s urban morphology. On the other hand, the hills surrounding the city centre are masked by glass and concrete boxes stacked one above the other in search of expansive views, thereby obliterating the natural landscape that is very much a part of Kandy’s ecological and cultural setting.

Particularly in the southern banks of the picturesque Kandy Lake – which this boutique hotel is tucked into – the hilly landscape is transforming into a chaotic ensemble of shoddy building structures, somewhat on par with a favela in Rio-de-Janeiro or a shanty formation of a place like Mahaiyawa in the north of Kandy. However, while the favelas and Mahaiyawa are results of the urban poor improvising desperately to meet their subsistent spatial needs - which one should perhaps tolerate due to underlying social histories and political inaction - the building morphology of these city hills are by-products of ‘the rich’ building for profit generation and cultural consumption. Hence, there is no reason why these constructions cannot be subjected to contextually-ethical and environmentally-supportive building practices, hopefully, guided by political and professional decision-makers and supported by appropriate regulatory mechanisms.

In such context, the genesis of this boutique hotel design stemmed from an urge to develop a building typology that, on the one hand, reacts against the city’s increasingly degrading building culture and, on the other hand, calls for a more humanistic approach in using local resources and landscape for economic gains promoted by tourism-related industries.  Subsequently, the placing of the building in its topography has placed special emphasis on protecting the site’s ecology as well as the city as a whole, thus proposing an alternative typology for building on the hills of Kandy with a move towards responsible tourism.

Above all, this building attempts to make an architectural proposition that captures the best of city views, but without altering the visual and physical landscape of the hills as seen from the city itself. The subsequent contextual approach of veiling the building amongst the green landscape is partly a phenomenological response and a form of social activism, which calls for greater responsibility in protecting the ecological pockets left in the hills.

Tectonically, while past traditions are acknowledged and re-interpreted, the aim has certainly been to respond to the realities of the present and the possibilities of the future. Traditional building typologies of the region (such as pavilion-type/colonnaded spaces, elevated platforms) and craft practices (such as stone-masonry, timber-work) are complemented by off-the-shelf, industrial components (such as G.I tubes, metal roofing) and alter native trades (such as steel welding, cement casting) to explore a new culture of production – and consumption – that is strategic, robust, and economical, and therefore can trigger an alternative path for future restructuring of the city and its building industry. 

This design thinking moves from a strategic position in city building (for Kandy), which calls for a building culture that fuses industry-organised production modes with the necessary support for traditionally-formed craft practices. In the end, the critical design issue at heart here is not about how to impose preferred stylistic tropes of architecture, or whether one should design a traditional-looking building or a modern one; rather, the spatial and contextual obligations, environmental prerogatives, industrial processes, and city-building goals are allowed to determine the type, shape, and form of the final building. By doing so, the architectural design is expected to generate a critique – and a dialogue - about the city that nestles it, as much as it is about the in commitment a building must lend to its functional and experiential program, its immediate topographical conditions, and its definition of appropriate technological vocabulary. Designed for a society of local businessmen who have been more or less responsible in determining the morphological directions the city has taken in recent times, this intervention was also seen as an opportunity to raise, discuss, and disseminate alternative views and practices of city buildings with those that matter most, regardless of how intricate the process could be.

reference

pathiraja m, 2014, ‘synecdoche, kandy’, in m pathiraja & r guneratne eds., the architect, vol 115, issue 4, bap & media services pvt, colombo, pp. 83-85