‘A’ for Agriculture; A renewed Alphabet beyond the Stereotype for the life to be transferred from fingertip to fingertip

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

Project idea

WHY – The green cover of the country is in danger! So I want to protect nature and the plantation industry that has an economic value too.

HOW – I’m going inject the vaccine of loving nature to the children and provide them with knowledge and resources to make a fortune out of nature as a long term solution so they can grow up and protect it.

WHAT – A two-phase education model that consist of a school and a small scale higher education/ vocational training institute of plantation followed by sufficient architectural infrastructure.

Project description

The project is a two-phase education system, that is structured on the developed design matrixes and that system can be applied in any plantation / agriculture situations in Sri Lanka.
In this situation; Avissawella, where the conditions are friendly for the rubber plantation, the same education system is modified and applied in order to respond to the threats and needs of rubber plantation. The education system is a mechanism that is based on the interaction among three user groups; students of the school, youth and the people of the neighborhood.

The 1st phase will be directly applied to the school and the phase 2 is an extension of the school, that the proposed facilities can be used by the school children and also the people from the community, especially the youth.

Further, the project is supposed to be generated from the context. It is a more of a linking mechanism of the three factors; school, agriculture & plantation and the neighborhoods rather than a fenced institute.

Technical information

• Inspirations from the local industry & context
The Kelani Valley Club is one of the most significant building that represent the British plantation industry and also an example for a prototype plantation building in Sri Lanka. The proportions for this particular project is taken from the Kalani Vally Club building.

• Encouragement for local skills of construction
The project is done with a locally available material and with simplest possible details so that for the construction, there won’t be a need of highly skilled and expensive workmanship from out of the context. The details also allow mistakes so the untrained workers from the region can take part of the project.

• Architecture and place making
As the indoor outdoor connection increases, people’s activity within these spaces increases. It is a good place to hang around and chat and eventually these spaces become memories and merge in to one’s life. Then these spaces become places.

• Meaning of ‘peoples gathering’ in Sri Lankan consciousness ; Colonnades
Each and every culture and civilization has their own meanings for their cultural elements. For architecture it’s the same story that they create their own architectural meaning. In this case, public gathering spaces vary according to their cultural meaning.
In Sri Lanka, the image of public gathering space is different compared to other cultures in the world in different aspects such as the scale, proportions or elements of it.
In this project, colonnades are taken from Sri Lankan historic and vernacular architecture as a meaning of peoples gathering.