Convertible Cultural Connector - Towards de-compartmentalizing the city's cultural space

University of Moratuwa (UoM), Faculty of Architecture, Department of Architecture, Moratuwa

Project idea

Design Position:
"To design a live building that transforms its form and activities to connect urban volumes, people and cultures, thereby overcoming ‘dead’ space and programmatic compartmentalization"
Sri Lanka has been subjected to rapid development in recent times, and its urban settings are expanding both vertically as well as horizontally. This propagation of the urban building stock is a result of the increased demand on housing needs, social infrastructure and industrial expansion. However, lack of planning at city level has resulted in a dearth of quality public spaces as well as isolated building programs with little or no engagement with the people’s urban needs and experiences. Many of these urban buildings are mono-functional and has no relationship to the city around them, thereby forming dead urban spaces where no public or social activities are welcome.

This design project – proposed for Colombo’s main cultural precinct - hopes to introduce a building program which caters to a wide range of social, cultural and infrastructural functions, supported by various public amenities; a building program - while responding to various needs of visitors - connects cultural activities, defy programmatic fragmentation, and brings ‘life’ to an otherwise ‘dead’ urban place. More specifically, the public activities are planned to take place at transformable spaces, where building volumes and forms can change time to time to accommodate various cultural functions happening simultaneously or successively. In other words, the building is designed to respond to a changing cultural environment, in order to attract and connect people, and provide a physical platform to celebrate the city’s cultural base.

Design Context:
● Most public buildings designed today are programmed to accommodate single functions (mono-functional) and operate with limited functional capabilities; building programs are inflexible and compartmentalized.
● The value given to the creation of public spaces within the urban realm is highly inadequate, and hardly any productive discussion is generated at city level to make them active.
● Public cultural buildings – such as performance theaters, auditoriums and galleries – and the space surrounded by them are generally used for a smaller number of days in a year; they are dead volumes during the rest of the year with little or no contribution to the public life.
● The need to engage and embrace the street life and the space between buildings, and the potential thereof to generate public places, are not given adequate value and thought.

Objectives of the design
● To design a live building that transforms its form and activities to connect urban volumes, people and cultures, thereby overcoming ‘lost’ spaces and programmatic/functional compartmentalization of buildings. ● To understand what constitute the idea of the public space in contemporary SriLankan urban context, identify the potential needs of public life in cities, and look in to what extent we can use architectural design as a tool to enrich the urban realm.
● To design the building as a flexible spatial and technological system, which is socially friendly in terms of its use, expandable in terms of its accommodation of programs, and robust in terms of its construction and implementation. Here, the social and spatial changes are not an ultimate outcome of the design, but a part of the design proposition.
● To activate the street life, link building programs and trigger spatial transformation.

Design Question:
How to design a ‘live building’ in a dense urban context, which could enrich the urban space as well as build socio-economic capacities, technical flexibility and cultural complexity to overcome ‘dead’ space and programmatic compartmentalization in cities.

Design matrix:
overcome ‘dead’ space and programmatic compartmentalization
Urban Linkage and programmatic de-compartmentalization
Design Position + Design Context + Design Principals(1. Urban Principals 2. Social Principals 3. Technical Principals)

Project description

Site Location: Colombo 07, Albert Crescent.

Site area: 120 Ha User:

Primary User: Foreign and local artists, Photographers, And freelancers

Secondary User: Diverse people from local context and tourist

User Objectives:
- A platform for artists to preform and express them.
- An artistic commune that could encourage discussions and knowledge shearing.
- A public space to use and enjoyed in many ways.

Client: Ministry of Cultural Affairs

Client Objectives:
- Formulate and implement policies for the establishment of cultural identity and diversity by steering the island wide network of divisional cultural centers
- Provide a comprehensive museum service to the country for the sake of appreciation, education and entertainment of general public by scientific and systematic conservation of resources belonging to the culture and the natural heritage.
- Formulate and implement programs for the conservation, promotion and propagation of literary, arts and cultural elements that project the identity of Sri Lanka.
- Spatial and cultural influx to adopt the changing world.

Investors:
- Ministry of Cultural Affairs via Colombo municipal council
- Administration of the existing commercial buildings in the site.

Investor’s objectives:
- Accommodate various people to the site to gain economic advantages.
- Bringing up foreign investment and identifying potential user to get economical advantage.

Resource person: National Museum of Sri Lanka

Albert crescent is a place with colonial affiliation where surrounded with various buildings (Show the buildings) such as National museum, national art gallery, John de silva thesrter , Colombo public library, nelum pokuna MR thearter, Viharamahadevi park, University of visual and preforming arts, and schools such as St. Bridget’s convent. But these buildings are compartmented with lack of connection with formal cultural programs. More over the cultural activists are also compartmentalized and fragmented as well. In the other hand informal functions such as street art exhibition such as Kalapola, food festivals , public out door theatrical programs are also happening in the site which actually become the attraction to the public.
The site sustains with the eventual informal function with in the shadows of the dead formal function
Synthesis of the formal and informal cultural values became the tool to trigger the spatial identity. Cultural inclusive built environment become the need to give a social flavor to the context as well. More over art has been used as a catalyst to create public space, attract people and spatial construction. Thus the building program is a fusion of formal and informal activities which could adopt with the cultural changes.
In summery a cultural connector became the type of the building to carry out the building program.
They play of the design is carried out by creating building language which shows up lightweight quality and the building dynamics. Light weight quality is achieved by the steel skeleton and a vault structure. vault form was derived from the context which creates an excitement, enrich the spatial quality and become a symbolic form in the context.
The design is a play between the expression of the vault and the expression of the skeleton in the form of the bridge as the towers.
The design connects the existing buildings with the bridge with an infill of various supportive functions such as auditorium, knowledge center, art gallery and restaurant spaces. As an urban drama the and the tower connect the public spatially and visually along the context. Where the bridge is flushed in to the building volumes.
The skeleton is made out of 4”X4” galvaniced steel I section painted in red to create vibrance. Where the vault is made out of fair face brick with steel reinforcement.
As an out come
provision of amenities in various levels attracts people and create an idea of how much a public space can work in the urban context has been achieved where they can be cultural assemblies. The technical framework allows permutation, accommodate spatial innovation, and self-learning capacity with a clarity if design and technological performance. Hear I have acknowledged the fact that sustainability is not only limited to environmental but it is an organic link of social and technical as well.

Technical information

Urban Programme:

Master plan and Master planning level policies:
As through the site study various contextual issues the design solution should activate the percent physically as well as culturally where it will mold in to a cultural percent in the Colombo urban context. Thus, to achieve this the design should response in the both contextual level as well as urban level. Design as a part of the whole should reflect with the entire context.

The Vision of the Project:
Mitigating the urban loss phenomenal in the Colombo city percent and connect the public spaces in a holistic approach coherence with a difference in the existing architectural settings.

Thus as a design intervention it is important to see how the building develops within the site as well as how it develops in to the urban context to inject its nature and connect the entire urban context of Colombo with its various development. As the design as a part of the whole it is important to address

1.What is the position of the built environment towards urban context. 2.What is the position of the context towards the built environment.

As a master plan we seek to connect the building in terms of tangible and intangible connection with the urban settings. We have identified certain points to address where they become the key principals in the design development strategy.

Key aspects of master plan:
1. Places for people
2. Enrich the existing
3. Make connections
4. Work with the landscape
5. Design for change

Responsive Environment:
1. Community and enclosure, Robustness, personalisation, Adoptive
2. Visual appropriateness , Richness, Character
3. Permeability &Legibility. Ease of Access Allow movement logically and legibly
4. Biotic connection, Extended Landscapes.
5. Adaptability , Robustness, personalization

Design principals:
1. create an environment where everyone can access and benefit from the full range of opportunities available to members of society
2. be integrated into the existing urban form and the natural and built environments
3. Address the connections between people and places by considering the needs of people to access spaces and services in terms of easy movement
4. Considering the direct and indirect impacts on the natural environment.
5. Adaptable design for the ongoing proposals.

The design is a play between the expression of the vault and the expression of the skeleton in the form of the bridge as the towers.
The design connects the existing buildings with the bridge with an infill of various supportive functions such as auditorium, knowledge center, art gallery and restaurant spaces. As an urban drama the and the tower connect the public spatially and visually along the context. Where the bridge is flushed in to the building volumes.
The skeleton is made out of 4”X4” galvaniced steel I section painted in red to create vibrance. Where the vaults are made out of fair face brick with steel reinforcement, ferrous cement and space frame with poly-carbonate sheet.