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| Wednesday, 3 December 2003 |
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Adventure Park Ella Simplicity in wood and stone
Have you been to the tourist destination - Adventure Park at Ella? If you have we are sure you would without hesitation echo out sentiments that in designing the Ella Adventure Park Architect Sunil Gunawardena with simple things like timber, stone, mud walls and thatched roof had created an outstanding an echo friendly and also nature embodied building. 'Archwatch' Advisory Panel at its meeting last week chaired by Architect Verenjan Kurukulasuriya decided to reproduce this interesting article on the Ella Adventure Park written by Architect Bernard Gomez (carried in the SLIA journal 'Architect' Vol. 103) with the eye catching pictures, which the panel feels will catch our readers' interest too. "Eco Tourism", today is a fashionable phrase among marketeers, and those in the hospitality trade, satisfying the growing public demand for the "Green Experience". Loosely applied, to anything from a 5-star hotel skirting a forested ridge, to a series of mud huts simulating a traditional village, the term "Eco-Friendly" is carried through, from the architectural design of the building, to a concept of hospitality and leisure, is rarely if ever seen in most of the examples visible today.
The Camp-Site: Adventure Park, Ella designed by Architect Sunil Gunawardena, succeeds where most others fall, in being unpretentiously simple in concept: A series of small, low scale single storeyed structures, resting lightly on the terrain, on a structural support system of treated tree trunks, supporting raised timber decked floors, and a timber rafter frame, supporting a roof of "Illuk" thatch. The site is accessed via a 2 km trek along a jungle foot path, where the visitor experiences the rich bio-diversity of the area. Jungle steams, boulder strewn natural ravines, abundant bird-life, and an interesting selection of indigenous trees, notable among which are magnificent specimens of the "Riti" tree, like living sculptures rising 25-30M into the forest canopy. The jungle trail culminates in a 1 m foot-bridge of timber planks, suspended on steel cables, which span diagonally across the Kirindi Oya river. The river is the outstanding natural feature of the site and a major focus of public activity, combing large boulders with still natural pools and a thick growth of forest trees along its banks. The rather, hair-raising walk across the river culminates in a series of charming, elevated pavilions, fronting the river, linked by covered walkways. These act as lounges, while also serving as viewing decks into the river. The experience created is that of being on a series of elevated platforms among the trees, with some of the trees themselves used as structural supports to the buildings. The individual pavilion-like building forms are linked together to the rest of the complex by the strong, sweeping, curve of the service corridor, a single storey structure of timber posts, supporting a low eaved roof of Illuk thatch. This 2 m wide path links up with the kitchens and the service area, hugging the contour edge of a paddy field to the North. As one moves along the corridor the visual experience of jungle poles, thatch, and stone paving is heightened by the view of the rice paddies, ending up in a forested hill slope to the far North. The corridor continues as an open foot-path which leads to the 2 storey cabana units, which front the river. These are of timber, post and beam construction, with timber decking for floors, supported off the ground by reinforced concrete stubs. The roof is a steep sloped thatch of Illuk, and the dominant feature of their design, defining the space of both upper and lower decks. The units themselves, effectively portray the concept of a comfortable jungle hut, comprising a single space which combines as a bedroom cum sitting area, opening out on to viewing decks at both levels, fronting the river. The units are devoid of doors and windows, with screens made of PVC mesh, bamboo mats, and extended eaves for weather protection. As the name "Adventure Park" suggests, the design of the camp-site, attempts to link outdoor spaces with simple open pavilions, which act as informal leisure spaces, having a certain flexibility of usage. One sees the effectiveness of the design lying in the Architect's sensitive use of simple natural materials like timber, stone, mud walls, and traditional thatch, put together, with an attention to detail, creating and appealingly, rustic ambience, which give credence to its marketed image as an eco-friendly tourist destination. ####################### First Principles I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to
be stuffed. I want the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as
freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. Great dreamers profess intimacy with the world, ...they learned this
intimacy... meditating on the house. All really inhabited space bears the
essence of the notion of home. The man who sat on the ground in his tepee meditating on life and its
meaning, accepting the kinship of all creatures and acknowledging unity
with the universe of things was infusing into his being the true essence
of civilization. And when native man left off this form of development,
his humanization was retarded in growth. These are lands of innocence. But innocence needs sands and stone and
man has forgotten how to live among them. Reflect then on what characterises abstractly House, a house, home.
House is the abstract characteristic of spaces good to live in. House is
the form, in the mind of wonder it should be there without shape or
dimension. A house is a conditional interpretation of these spaces. This
is design. In my opinion the greatness of the architect depends on his
powers of realisation of that which is House rather than his design of a
house which is a circumstantial act. Every commission demand a corresponding invention.... It is the right
way and not a private one. No house should ever be "on" any hill or "on"
anything. It should be "of" the hill, belonging to it, so hill
and house could live together, each the happier for the other. The place which a house occupies on the face of the earth, that is to
say, its location in actual space, remains the same place if the house
burns up or is wrecked and removed. But the place created by the architect
is illusion, begotten by the visual expression of feeling, sometimes
called an "atmosphere". This kind of place disappears if the
house is destroyed.... An architect is professionally honour bound to show the utmost solicitude for the interior of a house. On entering we register shock: this is the first sensation. We are impressed by a room of a certain size leading into a room of a different shape. This is what architecture is! But what gives you this architectural shock? The impact of the
proportion that you see. What produces these propotions? The objects or
surfaces you see, because they are in the light. Architectural sensations
are produced by the way we perceive distances, dimensions, heights and
volumes. This mathematics provides a key that, if properly used makes for
unity" Yet strangely enough, this key, proportion, has been lost,
forgotten: all important in certain epochs, leading even to sacred
mysteries, it is no longer some thing we think or care about. We have
abandoned it. Such is our present state. All an architect does is make spaces. It is the quiet and thoughtful
arrangement of these spaces that makes houses, neighbourhoods, streets and
environments. Good architecture never shouts. It is like a well-mannered
lady who is polite to its neighbours. The order and progression of the
street is more important than the individual building . Our experience of place and especially of home, is a dialectic
one-balancing a need to stay with a desire to escape. When one of these
needs is too readily satisfied we suffer either from nostalgia and a sense
of being uprooted, or from the melancholia that accompanies a feeling of
oppression and imprisonment in a place. When a man does not realise his kinship with the world, he lives in a
prison-house whose walls are alien to him. When he meets the eternal
spirit in all objects, then is he emancipated, for then he discovers the
fullest significance of the world into which he is born; he then finds
himself in perfect truth and his harmony with the all will be established. The real plight of dwelling does not lie merely in a lack of houses.
The real plight of dwelling is Indeed, older than the world wars with the
destruction, older also than the increase of the earth's population and
the condition of the industrial workers. The real plight of dwelling lies
in this, that mortals ever search anew for the nature of dwelling, that
they must ever learn to dwell. What if man's homelessness consisted in
this, that man still does not even think of the real plight of dwelling as
the plight? The most conspicuous special character of the Indian culture, and its greatest significance for the modern world, is the evidence of constant effort to understand the meaning and ultimate purpose of life and a purposive organisation of society in harmony with that order and with a view to the attainment of the purpose. The Brahmanical idea is an Indian 'City of the Gods'... The building of that city anew is the constant task of civilization... No city ever can be happy unless its outlines have been drawn by
draughtsmen making use of the divine pattern...that of the city of God
that is in heaven and within you. We say release and radiance and roses and echo upon everything that's
known; and yet, behind the world our names enclose is the nameless: our
true archetype and home. Presented by Ravin Guneratne (Courtesy: SLIA Journal) |
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