NURTURING SHELTER

Sensitively accommodating nature as much as a structure’s inhabitants is this Sri Lankan architect’s signature style.

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MANY THINGS in life pivot on the seemingly inconsequential, and for celebrated Sri Lankan architect Channa Daswatte it was his squeamishness, his inability to cut up a frog, that precluded him from the career in medicine his parents hoped for. With an interest in history and a facility for design, he made his way into the architecture profession, studying locally as well as at The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London.

For me, one of the privileges of writing this feature is to interview architects in a context meaningful to them and often revealing of their personal preoccupations. I meet Daswatte in a suburb of Colombo at his home office, a glazed pavilion, open to a generous sitting room and surrounded by the lush planting so distinctive of this part of the world. The room, with its piled books, paintings and sculptures, is a microcosm of many of the things that matter to him. The sturdy door framing is fashioned from teak planted when he was a boy, grown on his parent’s plantation and gifted to him for this very purpose. The floor of Sri Lankan timbers was reclaimed from a demolished house by Minnette de Silva, a pioneering architect who was friends with Le Corbusier, and the shutters that surround the entire top floor, modulating views and light, were made for a Geoffrey Bawa-designed hotel and bought for a song during a refurbishment. These things become a built summary of his history.