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| Thursday, 20 January 2005 |
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Living with tsunami: Can we go to the beach again? by Archt. L. T. Kiringoda It had nothing to do with imagination, which the Architects are capable
of, because it was unimaginable. Nor had it anything to do It was a play, which one can see only once simply because it was a drama in real life. I like plays and playacting and during my student days in school and university I have acted in several. Yet on Sunday December 26, it was something very special because I happened to be in a sea side theatre at Akurala in Kahawa and was forced to see a play, which I had no idea of its producer, and then to act in it against my will. It is not my intention to relate the screenplay of that impromptu drama, for the whole world now knows about it and its producer, Tsunami.
Nor do I intend to describe how I survived with thirty four others and two dead in my group after being washed inland by a wall of sea water rising above the roof tops of single-storeyed houses on the beach side of Akurala and moving at a very high speed. The past teaches many lessons. Whether we are prepared to learn them is the question. Reality On that particular occasion my fate was same as that of the villagers of Akurala who survived like me. The only difference between them and me was that I happened to be in their village, their native place, where they were born and bred. I lost two relatives but the villagers of Akurala lost almost everything they had to Tsunami. There was no trace of human habitation in some places. Others in my group and I came back to Colombo to bury the dead in Mt. Lavinia Cemetery with all formalities of a Buddhist burial while the villagers of Akurala watched their dead kith and kin being buried in a mass grave in Batapola. All remaining members of my group and I have settled down in the comforts of own homes. The survivors in Akurala village are still in camps in Batapola. That is the reality aftermath Tsunami. What can the villagers of Akurala do? Will they come back to rebuild their destroyed homes? I am not pretty sure for they cannot return to a place where some of their lost relatives are lying dead in abandoned lime quarries. Will they curse the sea forever? Same issue confronts the million Sri Lankans who have survived Tsunami. Professionals should address this issue The feeling of survival after Tsunami provokes me to look at living at seaside from a different viewpoint. It is also my opinion that all professionals who are stakeholders in creating liveable built environments should address this issue collectively because Sri Lanka has been given the right to manage an area in the sea eight times larger than the area of the country. We cannot abandon the beaches and settlements on seaside because of Tsunami. We have to learn to live with it. It is easier said than done. It is simply because the heritage upon which the love for the country had been inculcated and nurtured are rivers, mountains, paddy fields, forests, temples and tanks and the sea and the good fortune of not having volcanoes and earth tremors. It will never be same anymore. In the face of recent floods, droughts, landslides and the most recent Tsunami, time has come for a fresh overview based on a deep inward look if we are to rise again. Life with tsunami in Akurala Tsunami lasted only a few minutes. Yet the duration was long enough to expose both the good and the bad. There were brave and kind people and there were also the rogues. a) The brave, in spite of losing almost everything they had, rose to protect the survivors. b)The kind understood the need of the hour and rose to provide relief. c) The rogues, in spite of fully understanding the need of the hour, rose to rob the helpless. For those who lived by the sea in Akurala, seawater flowing across Galle Road was not something new. It had been so ever since their forebears started enjoying the financial benefits of coral mining in the sea. For generations they had also been enjoying the sea. Even on that fateful day they never expected the second wave to be so ferocious for they kept on advising the travellers stranded on Galle Road, to move in to the houses beyond the railway track until the debris of houses, fallen on to Galle Road after the first wave, was cleared. Even after seeing their houses crumbling with the first wave, they were concerned about the safety of others who were complete outsiders. Tsunami destroyed houses but not unity among the people The brave emerged after the second wave. They were not outsiders but the natives of Akurala who had just lost everything including many of their kith and kin. Yet they showed no signs of grief. They had no kind words to those who were wailing. Their loud concern about the safety of all those who survived, had a miraculous effect. It brought all stunned outsiders back to their senses. In no time they found makeshift rescue methods. When the rumour of another wave in the evening was life, they escorted all survivors, including the injured to refugee camps in Batapola. Tsunami destroyed the houses but it could not destroy the closeness among people in the neighbourhoods of Sri Lankan human settlements. Sri Lanka needs more young men and women of the calibre of brave youth of Akurala who could keep their heads about the raging waters. Let us hope that highrises in the new settlements will not destroy the cohesive neighbourhood. There were tears but nobody wept
They made arrangements to provide food and water. Some opened their homes to the displaced. They were not bureaucrats nor were they the police. They were citizens of Sri Lanka who acted beyond expressing sympathies. It was more than the hospitality the Sri Lankans are famous for. The country began to emerge from the shock on Monday 27th December 2004. Akurala devastated by Tsunami was like a haunted place. Another group appeared to have acted fast during the night of 26th. All valuables in the abandoned houses, buildings were missing. This group was definitely not from Akurala because all survivors from Akurala were in camps. The blind eye of the law enforcement abetted the action of the rogues. Meetiyagoda Police, the nearest station of law enforcement, which the survivors could go to, for making statements on missing persons or dead, had drawn the line; Akurala was outside their area of authority. That was one for the police for their role in disaster management. The writer is the Secretary of the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects (SLIA). Tsunami-affected Hambantota to get core housing projects by SLIA by Edward Arambewela Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse has on Tuesday signed with several donor agencies to commence the government's SLIA designed re-housing program for the tsunami-affected in Hambantota.
SLIA President Architect Lalith de Silva revealed these details at a press briefing held on Monday at the SLIA auditorium in Colombo launching the SLIA's fund for its own housing program for the tsunami affected families in the affected districts. He said SLIA along with the Katubedde University and others who are in the UDA (Urban Development Authority) setup government's Task Force for the tsunami affected has already assigned Architects to head the housing consultancy program in each affected district. They will hold workshops and meetings with the affected families and discuss individually the type of generic core-house they wish to have out of several such designs submitted to them. In these discussions and workshops the recipients would be free to make any changes they wish to have in the chosen plan which will be incorporated then and there. This way the SLIA would be treating them as they normally do with any client who seeks their services in housing. Both the government and the SLIA would be treating the affected in whatever section in life they would have been. Architect Lalith de Silva further said that the SLIA jointly with the Moratuwa University had applied the same method of re-building the houses destroyed in Ratnapura and Kalutara in the 2003 floods. The scheme had proved very successful and the affected people in that floods were now living and talking proudly of their new abodes. He said in the present project a group of French Architects and Architectural students would also be joining SLIA Moratuwa University consultancy group in the re-construction work. They would be thus using their input into the scheme. The housing would be getting an international touch that way. Re-usable debris The SLIA has advised the government of the possibility of re-using some of the materials of the destroyed houses, thus saving lot of money in the construction work. At present the debris comprising these re-usable materials were just being bulldozed and dumped into low lying areas. Training of unskilled labour Architect Lalith de Silva spoke of a program being worked out by the SLIA, in which the unskilled labour in the affected families could be used profitably in the re-construction program where they could be trained into skilled workers in the construction field for whom there is a much demand in the country today. He said in the area of tiling. A skilled worker could earn as much as Rs. 1,500 a day. SLIA project The SLIA fund for its tsunami housing program was launched with a capital of US$ 7,000 contributed by the American Institute of Architects and Rs. 10,000,000 (one million) contributed by the SLIA members. The Project Chairman Architect Jayantha Perera said that several institutions and individuals here and abroad had pledged to contribute to the fund, which is open at the Bank of Ceylon branch at Torrington Square. SLIA Secretary Architect L. T. Kingoda also spoke at the event. Director UDA Architect Prasanna Silva also participated at the event. Tsunami relief housing by Architect Vidura Sri Nammuni, Head Dept of Architecture Moratuwa University All Sri Lankans are well aware of the yeomen service rendered by the local Engineering community including that of the Moratuwa University led by the Vice Chancellor himself. The Department of Architecture, University of Moratuwa, in collaboration with the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects also swung into action as soon as the event occurred and offered their expertise and the benefit of their recent experience in providing Relief Housing Design.
The offer was accompanied by the assurance that the architects would fit into any restrictions of time, that were necessary, as long as the effort was towards providing appropriate and affordable housing. We were willing to deploy approximately 100 trained personnel for this effort. We are now engaged in assisting those who have responded positively. One shining example is Reginald Cooray, Chief Minister of the Western Province who is using us in many satisfying ways. These include conducting a User Survey to determine the preferences as well as the subcultural needs of the recipients of housing in addition to providing Design Solutions (and for personalizing them on the field). Such an effort is both therapeutic and ensures that the given housing will be acceptable to the recipient. It also rules out the foreign architectural expert as the success of such personalizing depends on a meeting of minds (between the designer and the recipient). The government would do well to use the ample, adequate and willing local expertise in architecture if only to bring these two sectors (the professional and the general) of the Sri Lankan community together and divert offers of assistance by foreign agencies to where local expertise is not available. Appropriate housing The aforementioned objective of 'assisting in the provision of appropriate housing' is an important focus in our offer of assistance. The statement implies that certain types of housing may not be appropriate. It also implies that different types of housing exists and that there exists a range of impacts of housing. For some, appropriateness lies on the time taken for the proposal to 'take off the ground' - to design and commence construction. For others, appropriateness lies in 'fast tracking' the construction process. Many such perceptions exist which also leads to prescription of corresponding 'types of housing'. For example, the aforementioned interpretations of 'appropriateness' has led, logically, to type plan/core house strategies and pre-cast strategies - both of which, for us, are wholly inappropriate, for several very good reasons. The issue here is not determining what/who is appropriate/right, but, rather, to decide whose advice one should heed in this regard. Whom does one listen to? Children heed the words of parents, teachers; patients those of the doctor and the therapist and so on. A society that does not heed the words of its specialists is a lost one. A medical specialist does not advice on agriculture. A community that does not heed the advice of architects in the matter of housing is similarly a lost one. Architects' view of what constitutes 'appropriate housing' is therefore worth heeding. The home as a curative ennobling tool The Sri Lankan Architect is clear on this. Whether of the Department of Architecture, University of Moratuwa or of the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects, they are agreed on what constitutes 'appropriate housing'. At a recently held symposium on 'Housing the Sri Lankan' the Home was clearly articulated as a curative and ennobling tool. An extension of this argument was that skill in architectural design rests on ones ability to animate the house so that it cures/ennobles a family of a specific collective personality and belonging to a particular subcultural group. This would provide the much needed/desired variety in housing designs. Providing animated building, a house that engages the householder, relatives and friends, the visitor and the beholder, in conversation (an environment that enhances his self esteem, that reinforces his identity and one that strengthens his resolve) is the least one could do to the tsunami victims. It is not only because they deserve it, but also because if we do not, the results of such omission would haunt the rest of the community to everybody's detriment. The tsunami victims are not beggars to receive our pity. They have contributed to our education, well being, sense of security etc. and it is now our turn to assist them to rise from the ashes. |
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with
Architectural fantasy because it destroyed everything in its way including
beautiful creations by Architects.
There were tears but nobody wept. Not even the small kids whimpered.
The survivors kept on walking along Kahawa-Batapola Road. Then the kind
sprang into action. Their lorries, trucks and pick-ups were busy taking
the survivors to temples and schools and the injured and small kids to
Batapola Hospital.
These are not just "type plan" houses imposed on the saddened
affected who have lost everything in the ocean-disaster, but houses of
dignity and individuality done on a generic plan of a house accepted by
each affected family, incorporating the changes they desire on the 'core'
(basic) house for immediate occupation, thus enabling the family concerned
to add on and complete the house later on while in occupation.
The writer himself took immediate steps to contact ALL personnel and
committees appointed to oversee the tsunami Rahabilitation effort, sending
written proposals as to how the local architect may assist. This offer was
not for consultancy.
