Between two worlds - Center for Arrack Industry and Distillery, Sri Lanka

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

Project idea

Between two worlds is an experimental attempt to decode the history and cause of the dying industry of coconut arrack production in Sri Lanka, and represent it in an elevated user experience, through an architectural building which blends the physical and virtual build fabrics together.
This building is an attempt to explore the possibility of using an architectural building to bring awareness to a harsh industry situated in a very traditional and conventional context. It is intended to be a catalyst to generate a conservation about the reality which is covered in fancy façades. The architectural intervention is intended to be novel by idea compared to the other buildings of the context, while being very contextual by construction.
The building is situated in Kalutara Sri Lanka, Kalutara has been a breeding ground for several major industrialists who gained their wealth by coconut arrack production. They funded many of the buildings in the era, which are still celebrated. Their offspring became influential political figures in the landscape of post – colonial Sri Lanka, through the temperance movement, contradicting their forefathers trade. Since then, the coconut arrack production has been one of the fancy introductions from the isle of Ceylon, all while the people, the farmers and toddy tappers who tirelessly endured all the hardships became unknown, while being victims to permeant damages and early deaths occurred by falling from tree tops, while harvesting the coconut sap required for arrack production.
Following the ideologies of deconstruction introduced by Jacques Derrida, this building attempts to question the idea of wealth, power and exploitation of lives hidden behind the prosperity and ornamentation of the coconut arrack production in Sri Lanka.
At first glance, the building can be identified as a facility to produce coconut arrack in small scale. It empowers the nearby community by buying their local produce of coconut sap for arrack production and making job opportunities. It also acts as an experience center, targeting the consistently increasing number of foreign tourists in Kalutara, as a center of attraction to learn about the arrack production process.
In the experiential journey, the visitors are invited to use the wearable devices they are given, in which the truly transcending world of augmented reality appears upon them. The virtual world is designed here as an augmented reality experience, which interacts with the physical building elements to superimpose the virtual fabric upon that, rather than a mere visual projection in virtual reality. The virtual world is created to be seamless and breathtakingly immersive to the very end, as the building itself transforms into a separate world. The user is now left with a choice to choose from, between two worlds.

Project description

Following the precedents by the architects including Bernard Tschumi, Daniel Libeskind and the theoretical viewpoints of Robert Venturi's book Complexity and Contradiction of Architecture, this building attempts to create an environment which feels unstable and unfinished by nature, which leads to the amusement and ambiguity of the users who experience the building. The design elements of the building act as follies, which guide the user through an informal pathway. The building is intended to be explored in a first person point of view. The building contains a center space, in which the tourers will be welcomed to the facility. This space remains open, so that it will experience the wind, rain and harsh tropical sun depending on the day, which indirectly gives a glimpse of the hard life of the workers who are engaged in the industry. The visitors are then taken through a pathway which resembles the toddy tapper's journey between the tree tops. Then the visitors are taken through a rough passage which explores the toddy collection, fermentation, distillation and aging, the steps required in ceylon arrack production.
While the visitors are on the journey, they are introduced with VR Headsets, which superimpose a transcending world upon the structure.(Experimental) . It reveals a quest for the visitors to find the clues on the pathway, which step by step reveals the process of arrack production on a virtual canvas. The building now begins to appear in an exploded maze, which further improves the ambiguity of the experience. This virtual world is made possible by the advancements of the modern technology, which is intended to influence and inspire the younger generation of the context to thing beyond the financial realities and hardships of the country.
Finally, as the pinnacle of the experience, the visitors then arrive at the center space in a full circle moment between virtual and physical worlds, in which the whole facility appears to be exploded. It it intended to replicate the ideological explosion and the breaking of the boundaries of one's imagination and conventional thinking process.

Technical information

The building uses in situ concrete construction for the slabs and floors, which requires low maintenance and low technical knowledge to construct. It also uses repurposed railway lines for columns and beams as steel to minimize the cost. The joints and details of the building remain robust and imperfect, allowing the local craftsmen to explore and experience while embracing the critical regionalism in architecture, in which novel architectural concepts are localized to comply with the social and technical know-how of the people of the region, in this case who remain mostly uneducated and lacks professional practice.