Projecting positivity

Happiness is an inside job – here are the upcoming interior design projects that we’re excited about, as told by designers themselves…

ANARCHITECT

London- and Dubai-based ANARCHITECT is taking it Tropical Modernism for a six-suite luxury hotel in Ahangama, Sri Lanka.

The first Harding Boutique Hotel site works are nearing the end and the property is expected to welcome guests by Q4 2020.

Not only is it ANARCHITECT’s first Sri Lankan project but it is the firm’s principal architect Jonathan Ashmore’s unique nod to Tropical Modernism.

He says: “It was important for us that the boutique hotel’s design responded on all four elevations in equal measure through a clean, contemporary and modern aesthetic.

“It is visually calm amongst the organic and wild nature that surrounds it, and it is contextually and environmentally responsive through its materiality and natural openness and permeability.”

Tropical Modernism is known for its focus on the local vernacular, the area’s natural resources and cultural connotations. These dictate a certain architectural style combined with the Modernist structuralism. Key factors when deciding on the hotel’s architecture and design include high sun altitude, low air movement and heavy off-season rain downpours.

Materials used throughout the hotel are ribbed local hard-wood, polished concrete and granite stone in local Sri Lankan detail to create an international destination rooted in the area’s culture.

Ongoing projects that the architecture and design firm also wants to shout about are collective workspace CO.LAB in Bahrain and a weekend retreat on the border of Sharjah, the former set to open later this year.

BINCHY AND BINCHY