The Architect - July - September 2013

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Architect Kerry Hill’s house for Mahesh and Shaila Amalean is a case in point. Located in an exclusive ward of Colombo where the facades of the neighbouring houses jostle for attention, its austere massing, silhouetted against the skyline, is conspicuous in its simplicity.
Holiday homes allow an architect to explore new ideas and thoughts that can push architectural thinking to a level, which may not always be possible in a more domestic everyday situation. These buildings are able to suspend the functionality of everyday life and look at architecture purely for its aesthetic and spiritual qualities.
Shipping containers – commodities of globalisation; self-sustainable, lockable cabins; are breaking new ground in the developing world as disaster shelters, housing for the urban poor, as community facilities and as urban infrastructure. This opens new opportunities for architects to grapple with, to creatively tweak these rusty piles of corten steel boxes into the much needed spaces for habitation.
Paolo Soleri, the visionary Italian-American architect and theorist who built the famed urban setting ‘Arcosanti’ in the Arizona high desert, dedicated his life to promoting an art of living that re-establishes the all-important relationship between human beings and the environment they live in.
Icon is C Anjalendran’s latest built work in Pakistan and his second project outside Sri Lanka.
Contemporary Urban Residential Architecture in Sri Lanka is a reflection of changing lifestyle patterns of urban society with the demands of work, time, social settings and response to tropical conditions. It is a transition from the nostalgic vernacular roots where Courtyard houses lined with shaded open verandahs and internal rooms transformed to settings with limited views restricted to smaller urban plot sizes in compact living environments.