Earth & Space Architects

07/02/2023

𝙀𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙝 & 𝙎𝙥𝙖𝙘𝙚 𝘼𝙧𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙩𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙨 𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘽𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙝 𝙎𝙩𝙪𝙙𝙞𝙤 𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘰𝘯 9𝘵𝘩 𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘿𝙖𝙢𝙗𝙪𝙡𝙡𝙖, 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘦 “𝘽𝙖𝙘𝙠 𝙩𝙤 𝘽𝙖𝙨𝙞𝙘𝙨” 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘤𝘶𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩 & 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘭𝘰𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘴 & 𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘺.

24/12/2022

𝐖𝐞 𝐖𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐇𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟑!!

- 𝘛𝘦𝘢𝘮 𝘌𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘩 & 𝘚𝘱𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘴 -

25/11/2022

Project Name - 𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙏𝙍𝘼 - 𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘓𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨
Location - Digana, Sri Lanka
Project Consultant - Earth & Space Architects

𝗩𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗮 𝟮

Situated behind the waterfront row of villas, the three Type 2 Villas occupy the land side of the road and sit at a higher elevation, offering stunning views of Victoria Reservoir and the Knuckles Mountain Range. The homes display a split-level design with living, dining and kitchen areas across separate levels for a connected spatial experience, with access to the rear garden space from the first floor.

The villas’ spatial progression features closely-related spaces with changes in spatial volume, colour, material, and texture. Their stylish, modern interiors and furniture set a mood of contemporary luxury in-tune with nature. The plunge pool and large verandah provides a unique indoor-outdoor transition space, ideal for bonding and enjoying breakfast together.

30/09/2022

With fast changing world, value and appreciation of environment and nature has gone up, people look for experiences more than the comfort. More sustainable and environment conservation models are in demand, since spatial quality of environment & nature helps to be in peace. Proposed gated community is a unique spatial design, ‘Inspired by nature’- ‘rooted in context’ where it offers an untouched spatial experience ideal for sustainable living.

Overlooking the calm Victoria Reservoir and mountain range of Knuckles beyond, property offers full of natural beauty is located in Digana off Kandy – Teldeniya Road within the central hills of Sri Lanka. We hope this product will achieve desired heights in terms of architecture, sustainability, protection of environment, peaceful luxurious living also as a feasible financial model for the developer. Private spaces will enrich with environment responsive architecture with spatially modern & minimalist yet elegantly design fully furnished 16 villas & 6 condos. Attractively, EMS Leisure will maintain and manage the property.

Layout / Master Plan

Intention is to intervene sensitively protecting existing topography and landscape, introduce physical changes as subtle as possible, subdivision of land plots and infrastructure was proposed considering views of the Victoria Reservoir, existing landscape and topography, which allows to reduce the impact on environment and land profile. Following of contours and undulating terrain will reduce cutting & filling, retaining walls and network of manmade drains.

Location of individual villa and common buildings are located in such a way each villa, each space and common spaces to get maximum of the surrounding views, mainly the view of Victoria Reservoir and distance Knuckles Range of mountains. This 3.5 acre waterfront property use less than 20% of total land as built, rest will remain as native landscape, existing flora and fauna will be further reinforce to encourage already nest life of birds and animals. Each 20p plot will encourage to have a home garden /orchard area for organic fruits & vegetable. Entrance and exit will be from one location for easy monitoring, however internal circulations are divided for easy access to villas/houses and common activities. Existing vegetation in front along the road will act as the lungs of the community providing thick growth of trees, this also creates a barricade from the road.

Residential / Home/Villa Plots

These Villas/houses have inspired by site and nature around, characterized by modern and contemporary architecture, spatial quality and response to site encourage harmonious relationship between man and nature. No boundary walls/fences between villas, boundaries are defined only with trees and green hedges. As per the existing land profile, vegetation and distance views each plot will have its own character, as a result character of each villa will vary, touch ground lightly, using maximum of 1/3rd of the land as the foot print.
Overall, there will be minimum of 4 types of villas with different site response, further variation within these type are also visible mainly at ground level depending on location, each plot is different in its topography. Intention of the development is to reduce the impact on earth, disturbance to natural movements & patterns, birds & animals most importantly encourage people to protect the environment.

31/08/2022

Villa @ Attigundi ,India

Design philosophy is to maintain existing patterns and movements, protect waterways, vegetation & wildlife, consume less &reduce wastage. Use renewable, degradable & re-usable, remain untouched by touching lightly, function robust, characteristically simple & elegant, spatially overwhelming & serene. Provide Natural & organic, create an awareness for sustainability.
Light & elegant almost transparent structure against the immediate backdrop of the mountain with thick growth of wild vegetation, panoramic distance views of mountains in front with reflection on water with rising Sun to setting Sun provides an experience being with nature. Spaces are composed & designed in such a way that one can experience the seamless flow of nature with the cycle of time, both from the inside and out.
Intention is to design a luxury modern villa catering to contemporary needs that are architecturally crafted and technically engineered. Functionally presentable language that could speak with future and maintain the essence of roots, culture, and values. Offer you with a comprehensive spatial character, which helps one to unwind and refresh simply observing the nature. Structures are designed above ground on stills touching the earth lightly on two embankments, leaving room for existing patterns of movement undisturbed. Uninterrupted spaces across the water create provision for horizontal layers of functions at different levels bridging people and the property

10/08/2022

10/08/2022

Behind what you see…. 55, Flower Road.
Flower road is one of the most prestigious roads in Colombo, Small site with a reasonable road frontage, extent is only 6.5perches (164Sqm), right in front of ladies’ college chapel. Though the site did not have any existing trees, fortunately the place was surrounded with distance trees where the canopy level visually well connected. As the property is within the primary residential zone, there are no tall structures around maximum 3 – 4 floors, as a result we had the visual access to Colombo’s skyline.
We developed the general layouts showing most appropriate arrangements with restrictions and regulations applicable. Locations of trees outside, climatic elements, and functional reasons as per the client’s requirement and what the street & context is demanding for.
Urban/Context Response – Urban response was to respect and maintain the above characteristics through the design while reinforcing the existing. Proposed architectural language will complement the existing.
Architectural Language - Need of the contemporary society demand for modern living, derived from the past, able to cater to the present, language that could speak with future and maintain the essence of roots of culture and values.
“Architecture Reflects the Society” – spatial quality of spaces derives from context, region, culture, values, and lifestyle of people.
It’s a contemporary /modern apartment embraced with distance treescape & skyline, engineered & crafted interior with subtle touch of Sri Lankan flavor in contemporary elements.

Design Brief – very specific needs of the project, requirement of each floor to be typical 2-bedroom home & roof to be common with pool and supporting activities. Slight changes to the given brief were done to achieve better clarity and elegance in the design.
Ground level was totally dedicated for parking to take the advantage of the lost space from top. Typical functional 2BR apartments are located 1st, 2nd and 3rd level respectively with identical floor plan.

Sustainable & Technical Aspect – We have used only 65% of the land and. Introduce space for planting not only on GF, even at UF and vertical surfaces.
Narrow building blocks provided more natural light and ventilation.
Various other technically sustainable methods are used in the project (such as solar hot water & power, rainwater harvesting, low e double glazed)
Most advanced MEP & ELV systems to technically backed the project.
Use of earthy materials, Low e -glass, shading screens & planting to reduce internal heat gain.
Designed to reduce external noise inside the building.

Material pallet – Structural steel, concrete, bricks, Sandwich panels, Cement floors, Timber, Aluminium & Glass etc.
As site is in a very complex area with lot of high security buildings, schools and upper-class residential neighborhood, challenge was how to reduce the on-site construction time. Selection of above material pallet was one of the key reasons make the process faster and reduce the time on site.
Almost two years after the occupation of the building and letting it weather and grow almost 50% of the façade is taken over by the trees and creepers, interestingly greenery is overpowering the hard work done by us.

08/07/2022

Competition submission for CSA
Location - Colombo

Design Approach
Even though the task is challenging and constraints we found project is very interesting as a design assignment. Taking contextual, social, functional and technical reasons we have developed the given brief to achieve more and offer more to future generation of architects. As an institute for tertiary education in architecture, we believe informal spaces outside the formal learning space is important, for interaction, informal learning, work in isolation etc… ideally a garden campus environment. However, due to lack of space at ground, we have tried to achieve reasonable percentage of informal space from upper levels and integrated them with common activities and other functions of the building. Intent is to create a COHESIVE & SUSTAINABLE environment which is spatially LEGIBLE, physically PERMIABLE & ROBUST characteristically KINETIC & VIBRANT technically EFFICIENT & LESS CONSUME & functionally IDEAL. We consider GROUND as the important and active level which relate & communicate with the street, Therefore, we avoided seeing dead cars and services at GL but provided with a series of common activities which leads to other integrated levels and functions of the building, thus characteristically GROUND level of the building becomes active, kinetic & vibrant also work well as an INTERFACE which relates to activities of the street and Entrance & Exit of the building. This is where four story podium act as a long overhang over the public interface and provide diverse interaction as a meeting place where people naturally congregate creating very inviting & Overwhelming entrance to the City School of Architecture. The eight story building divided in to 3 segments vertically and horizontally, creating in-between transitions spaces to integrate circulations and common activities in appropriate levels.
Site, contextual, functional and spatial reasons wanted plan to be Simple, Clear and Legible, building to be Skeleton and Elegant, circulation to be Transparent and Kinetic. Services and supporting functions along the length of the building act as a strong architectural element in the overall composition.
Spatial structure, composition of spaces and built form have derived through contextual, spatial, functional & technical reasons, site orientation has given the advantage of the Sun Path facing longer facades North-South. Service core acts as a thermal mass insulating the inner core of the building. Narrow facades - facing road and the back, affected by direct sunlight have treated with overhangs, vegetation and low E glass to reduce the surface heat & glare.
See through central stairs and lifts with transparent mechanical system which take vertical movements along Continuous Void act as the SPINE the building, which is highly KINETIC public FACE. Sides of the stairs/void on functional floors treated as graffiti/fun wall, where students can showcase their work, photographs, news etc. this adaptable wall can have random openings to use as fun windows.
Folded metal fire escape and activities of connected informal spaces/elevated verandahs, constant movements of people, elevators, cars and lights can be glimpsed through skeleton structure from spaces below and distance surroundings.
One of the key function of the building auditorium located on top for easy functioning in isolation and gain uninterrupted space, which is possible on top as it helps in structural integrity, to function as an independent connected-portals supported on main grid.
Vertical & horizontal SERVICE paths are exposed and done architecturally as a design feature using standard materials, colours etc… students are encouraged to study and understand the systems, operation and maintenance.
Building is designed to be EFFICIENT, LESS CONSUMED and SUSTAINABLE in every possible aspect from inception to completion, during running and maintenance. Spatial arrangement of the design and general arrangement of services, arrangement of circulations minimize the wastage of time, materials and energy.

Material Pallet
RAW Concrete, Structural STEEL, GI Decking with RCC, RAW USED Bricks, Natural STONE, Zinc/AL Sandwich Roof & Wall Panels, Dry Wall Panels (DURA), CUT Cement, STEEL, TIMBER, Aluminium, Low E Glass, Metal Screens, SCRAP Metal & Native Vegetation.
As we have selected above pallet of materials along with the design concept developed, intention is to encourage eventually, students to understand the role of MATERIALS in the process of creating architecture of proposed building and factors considered during selection of materials such as impact on ENVIRONMENT, CONTEXT, SPATIAL QUALITY OF SPACE, LANGUAGE, CHARACTER, architectural and engineering aspect, characteristic & behavior, recyclability & degradability of materials etc. We hope this may generate a dialog among students. – on possibilities of mix & match – breakaway from conventional way of addressing an issue…. Finding problems answers and solutions, use of technology, design innovation, understanding the aspect of cost, quality, time, operation & maintenance, negative & positive feedbacks and comments on the building product.

Sustainability
Building is designed to be EFFICIENT, LESS CONSUMED and SUSTAINABLE in every possible aspect from inception to completion, during running and maintenance. Spatial arrangement of the design and general arrangement of services, arrangement of circulations minimize the wastage of time, materials and energy.
To minimize the potential impact on the ENVIRONMENT in regulating the building's inner temperature, looked to the self-cooling mounds of termites. The common areas of the building have NO air-conditioning but regulates its temperature with a passive cooling system inspired by the self-cooling mounds of termites. Design composition and organization of vertical & horizontal spatial structure allows segregation of space with in-between transition spaces, which allows better circulation of air for passive cooling and create a stack effect along the void to escape heated air. Permeable ground, side space, upper level transitions and buildings’ THIN profile ensure natural light and cross ventilation to almost all the spaces. control blinds shade the glazed areas internally. Shades provided with overhangs, screens and vegetation reduces the heat & glare generate on external surfaces, also minimize potential future urban heat-island effects.
Since most of the materials used for construction remain in its raw finish, wastage of materials, energy used and time consumed will be minimal and requires less maintenance during operation.
Technologically advance methods & systems have considered for efficiency, energy saving and reduction on waste.
Renewable energy & Rainwater harvest incorporated to reduce the impact on national grid and water mains.

24/06/2022

House at Bangalore ,India.
Project status : Proposal

The intention is to protect the unique environment and make our
intervention is very subtle and sensitive, hence minimizing the impact on environment Design philosophy is to maintain existing patterns and movements, protect vegetation make a simple plan that reflect the lifestyle of the user, culture and society Design is derived integrating the GRID structure which is outside in the larger fabric, historically dominated in temple architecture then in colonial buildings Grid allow us to create an interesting composition in shapes and forms, solids voids, spaces with horizontal and vertical relationships. Grid structure creates characteristically simple, yet elegant, spatially overwhelming spaces which are embraced with
immediate landscape to create a harmonious relationship with
nature House consists of four functional levels and a basement with
parking and supporting services Ground level is mainly the public
level, while the first and second floors act as two typical private spaces with four bedroom suites and common functions at each level. The topmost floor is the entertainment/party space, while the front portion is used for Yoga Gym activities. The architecture and design of the house are intended to offer a unique, spatial feel that will bring about man’s harmonious relationship with nature, the feel of daylight fresh air the healing power of the mind.

10/06/2022

Holiday Home at Thisa Weva, Anuradhapura
Project status : Practical completion.

Anuradhapura being one of the most respected secret city of Sri Lanka, with a rich historical heritage going back to 2nd century BC. Interestingly most of them are still living monuments where thousands of pilgrims visit daily.
Network of Lakes (Wewa) built by the ancient kings still provide the need of people and agricultural work. This unique site is located on the periphery of Thisa wewa with access to lake banks overlooking the lake and the distance views of stupas of Anuradhapura.
Site is surrounded with private properties with various activities mainly houses and buildings related to field of hospitality. However, site is a narrow long plot still allowing us to observe the lake & distance views. Existing site don't have much of fixed elements except few trees. Land slopes slightly towards the lake, which we have used in the design.
Ancient monastery layouts of A'pura are mainly based on series of rectangular geometries composed in such a way it relates to each other in a manner that in-between space become a transition from one to another. This concept of organizing of spaces have evolve over the years, design of this house have derived from basic concept of monastery layout. Composition of spaces, connection to outdoors vertically and horizontally are key factors considered. Wherever possible we have reduced the barrier between indoor and outdoor.
Considering all contextual factors, we feel site and user both demands for a simple yet elegant structure which could accommodate a unique and memorable experience to enjoy what is Anuradhpura, some of the childhood memories and strong attachment to home land. Like in most of the dry zone vernacular dwellings priorities are given to transitional spaces so that most of the spaces act simply as a shelter to protect from elements while functioning as a platform to acknowledge and observe collection of memories and the nature around.
Compositions of structures are organized in a manner where, one could observe the Thisa Wewa, distance stupas and enjoy the drama of changing environment throughout the day. Simple and elegant plan form, unique spatial qualities of each space allow you to be yourself, perform your life in its peak, private spaces such as suites designed in a manner that you feel you are part of the nature, relax as you wish while enjoying spacious indoor and outdoor spaces with all required luxury.
Composition of built and un-built and layers which tied up at the center of ground level at the gallery with a private water /pool on one side and courtyard on other side, which provides charming yet elegant spatial quality when entered the building.
Each space is focus on beautiful views of the Thisa Wewa and surrounding landscape, so that you feel you are part of the entire fabric and not cut off from the destination.
Proposed materials and finishes are locally available rough stone and timber, ordinary masonry work, cement floors, half round tile roof and timber framed glass doors and windows which are completely openable so that barrier between in and out is almost zero. These materials will further strength and enhance the character and the language we work on, simply will help to further reinforce existing landscape and be harmonious with the surroundings too.
Parking are located at the front on the right, services and staff accommodations are also located in front as a separate compound.
Ground level is the main public level with common activities and a private room on one side, Upper floor we have two suites, bar and the lounge overlooking the wewa. Sakman Maluwa which run on the side of the house from front to back take you through a spiritual journey embracing different spatial characteristics of each space and stop you at the statue of Samadhi Buddha, if wish you can continue up to the water and observe silence for beautiful stupas of proud ancient Anuradhpura.
Composition of spaces allows user to perform their private life, while the house is on a spiritual dimension allowing one to understand the impermanence of life and power of the nature.

02/11/2021

https://www.dropbox.com/s/v1dk9gfgf1bfe1f/Chathra%20_V_Final_1.mp4?dl=0

Shared with Dropbox

13/07/2021