Sport complex and youth hostel at haputale

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

Project idea

Sports and physical education are other aspects of education and a means of achieving physical and mental health. Notions such as fitness, health, personal and social development, and mental health are closely related to sports and physical education. Understanding the influence and impact of physical activity and sport on society can be used as a development factor or as a strategic framework to fill the voids in the current education system that is changing in the urban and non-urban social structures of Sri Lanka. A carefully established program would be beneficial to engage this non-urban population in sports and physical activity at national and international levels under various conditions for long-term goals. The city of Haputale was identified for the implementation of this idea based on statistical data showing several key characteristics of the demographics of the entire council area and the town of Haputale. Based on that, the potential impacts on the development and operation of the sports complex were assessed. The data used is collected from the 2018 Census conducted in Divisional Secretariats.

As a sports complex, it is intended to meet the needs of all the local people of Bandarawela, Welimada, Haldummulla, etc. not only in Haputale town. The strategic location of Haputale City makes it easily connected with those other areas through the public transport network by rail and road. Furthermore, it has been shown that the total population of the Haputale Divisional Secretariat has increased by 16.85% compared to the data from 2012 to 2017, and population growth in the region can be expected in the future as well. Other reasons for choosing Haputale town are the total population of the Haputale divisional secretariat, majority of the population resides near the main trading town of Haputale compared to Diyatalawa, the other major trading town of Haputale division. Apart from those demographical data, geographical location with hi-altitude 1431m from sea level could be useful for considering the physical capability of populations with maintaining a considerable amount of low oxygen use and maintaining the energy they have naturally.

Project description

The design solution that addresses a social, cultural, and political problem must represent the deep and intrinsic values of the population to express that ideology or capture their interest and familiarity. Based on the cultural philosophical background, it tries to influence and reconstruct the urban morphology in order to obtain a more attractive quality from the urban and natural features. This will be an additional benefit to the city of Haputale, which is trying to address the urban level through the implementation of architectural position. Responding to all the above philosophical, contextual, and global movements and intellectual basis, this project seeks to explore design language that satisfies not only local but also modern needs. While researching critical regionalism and local culture, the project extracts meaningful design elements from local architecture and brings them to design. The design of a sports complex seeks to integrate those regional features and natural features without sacrificing its qualities in satisfying the physical and emotional needs of users and the community. A main building program is being developed to construct an indoor multifunctional playing court with an additional youth hostel, catering to users from various parts of Sri Lanka. The zoning of common and private functions has been arranged vertically to ensure that other building programs are not disturbed.

Kenneth Frampton highlighted six points of Critical Regionalism that were used as principles to generate the architectural language, extract elements, and select materials for this project. As an architectural intervention, the designs abstract vernacular architectural elements to represent dynamic movement and physical activity. The design also considers regional natural conditions such as climate, light, and topography. Meanwhile, design is combined with modern technologies. Last but not least, the project seeks to promote local cultures, such as faith, religious belief, spirituality and historical place, as an important element in the search for regional spatial intentions. All in all, the basic design strategy of critical regionalism is combining environment, regional cultural venation, and modern technologies in architectural design with an open-minded and critical attitude in a rational design process. The design principles used can be summarized in the following six points.

1. Culture and civilization
2. The rise and fall of the avant-garde
3. Critical regionalism and world culture
4. The resistance of the place-form
5. Nature, topography, context, climate, light and tectonic form
6. The visual versus the tactile

Technical information

The building construction mainly focuses on using steel, concrete, and timber. The main idea behind selecting these materials is to achieve expressive regional tectonic and tactile expression while incorporating modern influences. This project aims to maximize the integration of natural light and ventilation, in accordance with the principles of critical regionalism ideology.

Documentation

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