Sustainable Spectacle

Text: Ar. M. Sayem Ghayur

Photography: Ar Sunil Gunawerdena

Advancement in media and technology as opposed to advancement in religion, culture and literature, has spellbound the modern day society to such an extent that the worth of our cities, peoples, gadgets of utility and thus everything that surrounds us has reduced to its mere appearance. This value of “spectacle” is growing larger than ever due to the economic benefits it brings along with it. As an outcome, our cities and our lives are turning into Xerox copies of a skin-deep global idea; of crystalline high-rises and an Androidian nine-to-five routine that makes it all possible.

This very well set culture, of highly superficial global spectacles, has taken a toll on our credos and beliefs as well. We call for peace with the help of lethal warheads and shiny ammunition; we sing and dance to preppy music and celebrate it all night long in charity concerts with benefits going to famine and war struck areas of the world; we go to earthquake hit areas to photograph the homeless and the misery struck, just to compete in contests for capturing the best photograph of misery. We use everything for our commercial benefit to this extent that in the practice we often turn miseries and mishaps into media spectacles too!
This brings me to the most talked about global issue of our times, other than the terror (read war) against terror; global warming. We have the green movement almost everywhere these days; and so we have bigwigs of global entertainment industry working for awareness of energy conservation too. Most recently a concert is often arranged on a global scale, involving parallel performances from around the world, getting transmitted around the world too, via satellites, cables, modems and thus involving a lot of consumption of energy itself.

Performers from around the world come on stage, plugged and loud, with a ritual to chant slogans such as “save energy, save life” and “Replace one bulb with an energy saver and save life yeah!” The multiple storey stage with millions of lights flashing across the gleaming electric guitars, various other plugged instruments and frantic loud speakers always remain all around. The radio station airing the show “live” from across the world, has a radio jockey forcing you intermittently to never get off your diesel engine car. The best radio station has the best musical extravaganza of the year on, so keep polluting the air, but don’t forget to turn off that tungsten lamp at home! Various restaurants and cafes install lots of lights and as much projector screens and plasma televisions outside their outlets just to invite more people to chant against global warming!
A spectacular show for a spectacular cause! Right? Will we ever go to a massive bonfire in a tree forest for the raising of awareness against global warming? Yes we will, like we approve killing for the safeguard of life, like we wage wars for the love of peace? We don’t know our issues, in fact we are so surrounded by them that we have gotten comfortably conditioned to them being always around us. Our lights have blinded us, our machines are killing us, our flaws our throttling us, and we simply don’t notice them because we are too blind to see. We love our flaws and we love our machines, but we continue the same, because we never think out of a routine!

Such green movement in architecture is also being met with quite a spectacular surface treatment. We have architects who make high-rises with lots of glass (in hot countries), thus requiring much more air-conditioning and still they dare calling their buildings green and sustainable. It is simple to justify the act by providing every floor with a balcony full of plants, or maybe a court in the centre that brings in light and a “green” view but no air because the offices have to be well cooled. How about just having a green painted wall, architecture turns “green”, simple!

Global cities with a zest for going high and big are so heavily surrounded by spectacles that going deeper than the glitzy surface gets ignored as usual, conditioning them to see everything with the same level of intensity. Whatever green remains is what can accompany the spectacular side of the project. Thus, spectacles and global influences over shadow the truthful rendition of sustainability quite successfully.
On the other hand people living in natural surroundings tend to see things differently; they are not affected by the hypocrisy of modern times because they live within natural spaces that breathe with them like themselves. This harmony that they have with their surroundings makes them so content with whatever they have that they don’t go on exploring the superficiality of outer glow. Therefore, they end up doing exactly what they thoroughly believe in without the insecurity of being left behind lingering in the air. This inner contentment shows in their spaces and their beliefs that go beyond the surface treatments and spectacular ideas.

Basically, civilizations with either no cultural background or a confused one fall into the trap of the forget-your-traditions-go-blindly-global paradox. Sri Lanka is nothing like such globalized-wannabe countries. The teardrop shaped island’s rich tropical climate, propelled by abundant rainfalls, ensures presence of a perfect natural setting with lots of forests, variety of flowering acacias, many valuable species of trees and the never ending shore lines. Morning view of a typical Sri-Lankan town is adequate to understand why this country does not suffer from globalization complexes that come as a driving force behind the culture of confused modern societies. A usual Sri Lankan roadside sees a queue of frilly dressed girls and formally dressed guys ready to take public transport to their schools and offices. The level of cleanliness and demeanor they radiate matches well with the edges where the roads meet the pavements. Sri Lanka has no pretensions and show-offs; it is so blessed with natural beauty that it doesn’t need to invent beauty for its cityscapes.

The good part is that this country’s people are quite aware of the fact that man is subservient to the beauty of nature; they don’t try to supersede nature with their creative skills. Architects working in this country are best manipulators of their surroundings, their egos are neither larger than life that surrounds them nor greater than the requirements of the users of spaces they design.

The mental focus provided by the environment (both natural and built) of Sri Lanka is good enough to settle ideologies of young architects working in the country. Sunil Gunawerdena runs a practice full of vision for sustainable Architecture, where his users and the context shape up his concepts and designs. I had the opportunity to look at his entire body of work, which clearly demonstrates how site specific requirements and user-defined needs can influence the architect so powerfully that following worldly trends becomes meaningless. This turns architecture into a practice solely to benefit the user and not the global-movement. Above all, the usage of materials for the spaces he designs ascertains very clearly how ignoring the surface treatment can make architecture deeper and simply much more than an eye-candy.

Sunil’s design of the Visitor’s Facilities at The Bundala National Park is one of his projects that make statements of his ideologies quite successfully. The park itself, is not only an important wetland sanctuary for migratory shore-birds including the Greater Flamingo and waterfowls, but it also proves immensely popular with elephants, crocodiles, endangered marine turtles, civets, giant squirrels and eco-tourists from around the world. The park with its great bio-diversity covers an area of 6216 hectares and is located about 250km southeast of Colombo in the Hambantota district, about fifty minutes drive from Colombo. The terrain of the park is generally flat with sand dunes bordering the coastline, and vegetation consists mainly of dry thorny scrublands, brackish lagoons, salt pans and inter-tidal mudflats.

Considering the number of people who visit the park, Department of Wildlife Conservation commissioned Sunil Gunawerdena to design a centre to fulfill facilities of these visitors coming to the site to witness nature in its full majesty. The Visitor Facilities structure has been inspired by the flight of flamingoes that can be seen against the blue of the beach and green of the vegetation. As the architect puts it, “natural beauty of the “Bundala” national park was taken into consideration to create this place with a unique character. Take-off of Flamingo birds with large wings and thin long legs on a large patch of greenish water of Bundala lagoon inspired a unique flavor for the site. It is a very relaxing and enjoyable activity to experience colorful birds on water.”

After going through the natural habitation of the park that is conquered by a bevy of beautiful trees and foliage, the narrow block of Visitor Center doesn’t come as a surprise or a spectacle. The Center is located along the Bundala lagoon so as to offer an authoritative view of the sand dunes spreading along the sea. The structure comprises mainly of linear walkways and decks that are kept elevated from the ground to abstain from disturbing the habitat present at the site. Besides the practical issue of not disturbing the movement of insects and animals, the design of the decks and walkways has been aimed to appear as transparent as possible, just to merge the fabric of the man-made project into the environs of nature and its wild-life.  The regard for the inhabitants of the site, the wild-life, is apparent in the architect’s decision to elevate the facility above ground. This, besides making the movement of the habitats comfortable, makes human experience more pleasant and enjoyable, the purpose for which they come here.

These walkways and decks are covered with curved roofs that metaphorize spread wings of a flamingo, while the metal posts that hold these spread-wings in air are proportioned in view of delicate legs of the pink bird. The entire facility has been scattered in the open patches of the jungle, in order to avoid disturbing of the natural layout of the jungle. The scattered patches are then connected with the elevated walkways. In the middle of these constructed patches are solid blocks that contain display areas and services such as kitchens, administration offices and toilets.

The aptly context-sensitive design concept along with the muted materials used, give the structure a bonding with the ruggedness of the jungle unknown to architects and designers living in homogenized global cities. Presence of nature is quite evident in Sunil’s design, in our modern cities we often have architects who claim to be designing with the much contemporary green movement in their minds, concurrently they are fascinated with the idea of skyscraping plasticity of modern cityscapes too. They do plant a lot of trees but only after cutting the ones that hindered the exact execution of their exquisite designs. They do make it “look” green just to come more contemporary but that also with a lukewarm intensity. To feel the true presence of nature’s domination for the betterment of our living environments, we will have to be slaves to the nature’s dictations and not to our whims, fantasies and fascinations. We will have to stop the green movement turn into our personal whim or fantasy and let nature decide. We have precedence available in the works of architects who live and breathe in arches and walkways made of trees and leaves. Let’s hope the sky doesn’t go “green”.