Dualogue 01 | Experiencing Architecture in Sri Lanka

Dualogue Experiencing Architecture In Sri Lanka

01 Speakers Ho Kae Jing Asst. Prof. Ar. Chia Lin Lin Moderator Emmelia Anne Quek Yuen May

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Published in Malaysia by SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE & BUILT ENVIRONMENT UCSI UNIVERSITY 1, Jalan Puncak Menara Gading, Taman Connaught, 56000 Cheras, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Asst. Prof. AR. Chia Lin Lin Head of school, school of Architecture and Built Environment, UCSI University Asst. Prof. AR. Chia Lin Lin obtained her double degree from USM and later on graduated from UPM with Master of Environmental Science from University Putra Malaysia, Faculty of Environmental Science in 2006. Asst. Prof. AR. Chia Lin Lin obtained her Professional Qualification as an Architec in year 2001.

She has almost 15 years of industry experience includes being the project and design architect in Ong Keng Poh Architect and KL Wong Architect, Penang before she joined the academic in year 2000.

Chia Lin Lin’s visit to Sri Lanka in 2009 revolves around the experienes of the locality and blending culture between architecture, nature, craft, and community. Her 3 days 2 nights trip have shed light on the locality in architecture in terms of materiality, technology, and sustainability. In this aspect of experiences Designed and constructed using just about would mostly anything on site, the mud house has a relate to the mud strong vernacular and local values in it on house she stayed how sustainable the built material is. Using in. a combination of cow dungs and fibres to construct the floors, clay to construct the walls, and leaves and jute ropes for other details, the simple structures of the mud house built from these materials creates a harmony between nature and architecture. The harmony gives off the ambience of going back to nature to the users, far from what a typical modern lifestyle is.

These values are further enhanced by adapting around nature where the people constructed the mud house that revolves around the trees, without destroying it, adapts its shapes and utilised it to their advantages such as shading device. The adaptation is not limited to its construction but also its community where seasonal activities are conducted such as meditation under a rainy season.

Designed & constructed

The lifestyle of these communities heavily revolves around nature where the distinction between day and night activities is much defined. Everything about it is very natural and hardly any modernisation is noticeable. Pitch black at night, the people of Sri Lanka does not use electricity but oil lamp to light up the mud houses. The blending also applies in its communities where there is no boundaries between different communities. They helped one another, providing services to each other whenever required in different harvesting times and different technical skillsets.

These diversity of skills in the general community has made maintenance of their lifestyle

Ambiguity of boundaries

The next contrast from the humble mud house led Chia Lin Lin to the experience of Geoffrey Bawa’s works in Sri Lanka.

The qualities as summarized focuses on Geoffrey’s play on ambiguity of boundaries at the effect on exterior/interior, nature/ man-made and traditional/modern as well as the respect to culture and craft of Sri Lanka. The blending of this values, Bawa has created an intermediary space one can classified as semi-interior spaces through the use of materiality, shapes, Speaking of respect, Chia Lin Lin would and levelling. For one, it can experience another of Bawa’s work that was be the steps flowing in the a tribute to craftsmen, a shophouse of craft seating and roof or it could exhibition. Noticing the functional aesthetic of be the courtyard spaces as it, there was minimal modern technology that designed by Bawa. The respect was involved, one without lighting, one without of crafts would come from water pump. Utilizing ancient mathematics and the motives and ornamental physics, flow of water in its aesthetic comes from design that is heavily tied the water pressure physics. Bawa brings out the to the identity of Buddhism, small detail of local architecture to be relevant much like the Gothic glass art towards the modern era. With another project depicting the Bible. of his, the design of the building relates to the concept of craft quite literally, where the building is created in the form of the handmade clay craft, one without right angles and full of curve as if it Is erected from hands.

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Ho Kae Jing’s trip to Sri Lanka would take later years in the 2016. Her experiences are much more communal and its diversity of qualities at different places. Taking a peek into the very small details and experiences of the local’s lifestyle makes her ponder about how they actually live the lifestyle they had almost every day.

Ho Kae Jing

M. Arch Graduate from Tsinghua University. Exproject manager of a co-living-youthspace in China, managed more than 10 collective houses and 300+ members.

Currently a freelancer working from home in Malaysia, mainly as a designer, sometimes, an event hoset, content creator, unprofessional baker.

It begins on the reason of visiting Sri Lanka, the main reason for Ho Kae Jing’s visit was mostly revolving around convenience, mostly on the price value of its quality trip being considerably cheap, the location of it, a few website promotion on its tourism and its safer comparison to India. Researching through the internet, she would plan the travel from points to points through the desire of travelling by train, one would have an expectation of excitement to experience something straight of a Studio Ghibli movie.

Diverse culture However, reality isn’t often as nice, where Kae Jing’s experience with the third-class train was uncomfortable, overcrowded, and boring in her opinion. Though she ponder the lifestyle of the locals through it, how could they had live this daily? The railway networks and connectivity of different communities were quite segregated as it is difficult to manoeuvre around different places. Although the case, it also paved way for a more diverse culture when they are separated such as the ancient temples, humble locals, and the more modern contemporary style.

Through a series of photos presented, Kae Jing’s experience in Sri Lanka makes for many unnoticeable humble details of Sri Lankan lifestyle. The daily newspaper utilized as food wrapper, the random passenger that hops in the train to sell coffee instead of a dedicated train vendor, and the communities that disregard class and status, all surrendering their pride to Buddhism.

Buddha statues found almost anywhere, the people of Sri Lanka pays their respect and rituals to their religion whenever needed. Thing were different as she ventured deeper into Sri Lanka, where somehow, status has become a thing with the grander temples which different styles of ritual being performed by the people.

In the end, her opinion through the trip of Sri Lanka is personally hers. Kae Jing remarks that experiences are personal. It accumulates up, with enough understanding to affect the general way you think and approach problems.

Highly encouraged when practicing architecture, one would find out the most personal things they’re fond with in architecture and become more self-aware, crafting oneself to become a better person and a better architects.

Experiences are personal 7

“Is it a necessity for all architects and students to be involved in experiencing architecture around the world?”

A lot of self-taught architects like Tadao Ando or Le Corbusier, they have started perhaps by travelling. So I think a lot of things that we have learned during our architecture education revolves around 2D. It can never be compared to when you are in the place with the others to experience it. By it doesn’t mean that experiencing architecture must be done overseas. So, if you are travelling in Malaysia or the different parts of Malaysia, you will find out that basically, every different place that you visit, you will have very different reactions, or people will have very different reactions to even the same things, or the same people will have different reactions to the different place. I think as an architect, that’s one of the most important things, being an observant person. Because at the end of the day, when you are designing an architecture, if you do not know and you cannot even have a single clue to predict how people will react to the space that you design, you will never be able to design a space that will make people comfortable or to stimulate certain emotions in the user. So I think is experiencing architectures don’t think that we must travel overseas, it is an exercise that you must have to learn to be observant to try to see how people react. People sit on the steps when the steps is 2 foot or 600mm or will they still sit on it if it is just 300mm. Which one will make people want to sit on? What height are we choosing for them to step on things?

Yeah, so I think that’s the lesson students to have.

Asst. Prof. Ar. Chia Lin Lin

Q&A If you have money. I mean don’t restrict yourself to this place or not, it is a natural thing. If you have the chance to go then why not right. It’s not a must, I don’t think it’s a must question but it’s more like it’s a daily practice wherever we go. We can always see things and think about things with different way. But I think going to different places do have differences between always staying in the same place because you will find the differences and comparisons. This is what like make you think more like why Sri Lanka, Malaysia, or China has different values?

Ho Kae Jing

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“What was the preparation considered when choosing the locations in Sri Lanka?”

Well, I think for me, it’s very straight forward, because Geoffrey Bawa has always been the name in this part of Asians countries. During that time, he is the one that has received the most attentions, and most honoured was given to the architect of this part of the country. Most of the architects are from Europe and US. So I suppose that is one of the reasons that pushed me to that. But I think before I make the trip, I have no idea how much lessons that he has drawn from the ancients and also from just a simple vernacular architectures. Yeah, I think my my intention is quite pure and simple.

Asst. Prof. Ar. Chia Lin Lin I think mine is simpler. The air ticket is nice then I just go. Sri Lanka is more affordable. Sri Lanka is very much recommended in the internet but also as part of its tourism promotion. But of course, Geoffrey Bawa was still one of the factors but in the following years, I keep recommending Sri Lanka to all my non-architecture friends as well because I think that it is a good place to travel alone that you can experience it without like, worrying too much of the restriction or anything’s. I mean, it’s safe but interesting space for a short get away. But it’s a hard question.

Ho Kae Jing

I’m more of a technical person. My first intentions when I was drafting out the itinerary is to start with the most local vernacular architectures, and then move on to ancients and I move on to modern. So it’s kind of curated the way that I would like to see it in the timeline. I supposed the one thing that I feel I didn’t manage to see not so much as people in their kind of grassroots life, like, what they have done because they took the public transportation and I didn’t. However, one thing that I feel is, is that while I was in the mud house, they really cook you the very native food like the use of barley to cook rice.

Something that is very simple, and very unique to Sri Lanka. But unfortunately, the moment that I left the mud house to all the places that I went and visited and have my lunch and dinner or breakfast, you can never find back that pure cuisine. What happened is that during the time when I visited, they just started tourism. So it was just after the internal war that lasted for so long. So everybody is just trying to ease the tourists. So the moment that they bring you to a place, it’s always things that they think the tourists would like. So that is actually the dangers that we have, but during the time that I suppose it’s only food that they change, but after a while to travel to enough places like even Thailand that I look up to on the craft, you start seeing that the tourist attractions is so crude now because they are just trying to quickly do what tourist attractions for you to go in and take pictures so they can collect money. I think those are the dangers that we are also seeing here in Malaysia is that we are trying to adapt to the tourists so much.

Asst. Prof. Ar. Chia Lin Lin Language barrier, perhaps? Even though like most of the locals in Sri Lanka, they speak English, but most of the time they still speak, their native language. I thought there would be a difficulty in communications but I’m not sure if is it because they are being friendly, or is it because there’s more than language? They are willing to teach us a few words, and you can adapt to that environment very well. I still remember the word ‘ayubowan’ for hello or bye. And you can use it to every person you’ve met on the street. It give you a feelings like you are part of the locals walking on the street. If you say what’s out of my expectation is that I never thought to communicate with them with their native language and locals in this way.

If you mean in terms of food and tourisms. Yeah actually I didn’t see much of the tourism.

The things I feel the most close to tourism is Geoffrey Bawa himself.

Yeah because the problem is he’s getting so famous now. So if you want to visit his place, you have to make reservation an there’s the gates blocking you to get closer. It’s quite a pity because Geoffrey Bawa is famous of his beauty or space is very down to earth is very close to nature is supposed to be a very friendly place but because he is famous, it feel like the luxury place at the end, but it was still worth visiting.

Ho Kae Jing

“Was there anything else other than the train experience that did not meet your expectations?”

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“Which part of Geoffrey Bawa’s architecture design would you say was the most memorable?”

I think it’s a bit hard for me to answer that. Fairly speaking, he is quite a master architects. So I think the one thing that really strikes me a lot is how that he bend things and all those things but also I think I recently also did some research and fairly speaking if we are talking about Geoffrey Bawa, the style has existed before and Geoffrey Bawa came 10 years after. But I can say Geoffrey Bawa manage to bring it up to the world. Okay. If you ask me which one specifically, I think each and every one of them has something for us to remember he was always trying to fine tune it and craft it a little bit better using a slightly different way of interpreting it.

That is the land that’s opposite the lake because the land opposite lake, he wanted to preserve the lake view, that’s why he bought the other side of the lake just to make sure that view is preserved.

Asst. Prof. Ar. Chia Lin Lin

Actually, his work is quite consistent. You can see this is done by Geoffrey Bawa.

Maybe that’s why it’s really hard to say which one is the favourite because there’s all his work. Maybe the masterpiece is his private house at Colombo because it’s in a limited space but he managed to plan this space in a very freeform way. It’s too technical, but I do heard about very small interesting story about Geoffrey Bawa because when we went through the tour, there’s a tour guide that told us all the story such as Geoffrey Bawa has a very big gardens and each spot of the gardens has a bell ring. So he can choose which area he wants to have breakfast, the afternoon nap and what he just needs to do me just ring the bell and all the bell is customised in different sound and tones. So the staff or the worker will know where Geoffrey Bawa is they have to run to him. Geoffrey Bawa was also very rich in a good way like he bought a whole big acre of land just to preserve it as a green space. He didn’t do anything on it but he just buy it just to preserve as a big green space.

He has a very OCD in colours like he only like black and white. So all his pets such as his fish and his dogs must be black and white. But his work is a masterpiece. Yeah, worth visiting.

Ho Kae Jing

“Do you think it’s considered safe and comfortable to visit Sri Lanka?”

Actually I went there again after 2009’s trips, I visited Sri Lanka again in 2012. This times I decided that I wanted to just forget about architectures. We only travels to the nature, the forests and so forth. So we I took a different route in my second trip.

Asst. Prof. Ar. Chia Lin Lin

“What would you advised all architecture student for today?”

First lesson is to ask questions.

Asst. Prof. Ar. Chia Lin Lin

“Has your experience in Sri Lanka and Geoffrey Bawa’s work made an impact on your work?”

I think it’s a bit difficult to say that you know how it affects our work. However, I think it makes you think differently that, do you really have to have all the natural elements in block up of your house? Do you really need to draw a line in between indoor and outdoor lines? So I suppose those are the lessons that you will learn in everything that you do. So, when here in Malaysia, I think we cut off indoor and outdoor, a very clear line. Even in the Malay houses, you will see that indoor and outdoor is quite obvious in the sense because they’re all looking into building it next to the rivers. You can’t afford to have indoor outdoors so blended if not mud water will comes into your house. So you can’t actually say that you can take whatever Geoffrey Bawa did in Sri Lanka here in Malaysia. You can only learn from these attitudes towards the architectures and the core systems with the nature and see that how it can be relevant here in Malaysia. So I don’t think that is one thing that you can just pluck. If you can pluck it out from Sri Lanka and place it in Malaysia, then we cannot call Geoffrey Bawa, the master architect of Sri Lanka or the international style.

Asst. Prof. Ar. Chia Lin Lin

I have a very breeze feeling in Sri Lanka, like the winds just come like nowhere and I feel very comfortable in Sri Lanka, even though is also hot and humid but you didn’t feel as uncomfortable as in Malaysia. In Malaysia, you just want to escape to the air-cond rooms and you don’t want to walk on the streets. Sri Lanka is different. What I found is that they treat the landscape more naturally, or perhaps they didn’t treat the landscape. So, the tree and the grasses just grow naturally on the street, the paving and the roots coming out. In Malaysia, you will take out the roots and make it smoother but in Sri Lanka, people will give space to the tree. Instead, they make the paving curvy to make sure it match with the shape of the tree. I think that’s the different thinking mindset about while we are seeing buildings and creating things like which one is their preference, and which one they more respect.

Ho Kae Jing

“Are the locals friendly enough to talk to you about Sri Lanka?”

Yeah actually, more than friendly. Yeah, actually, I suppose you have to think that the majority of Buddhist countries, they are generally very friendly and very inclusive so they will try to help you out.

Yeah, it’s not like you go to Kek Lok Si and if you are local that will sell you RM20 but if you are foreigner then they will say the price is RM100. Yeah, you don’t really have that in Sri Lanka.

Because people are telling you saying that you must visit India once in a lifetime but when India seems a little bit scary to go. In Sri Lanka is not bad.

Asst. Prof. Ar. Chia Lin Lin

But I think like there’s a difference between fake friendly and true friendly because sometimes people treat you friendly you will feel like a burden to him but in Sri Lanka by just acting naturally like they treat you as a friend. It’s a friend kind of friendly that make you feel comfortable and you’re willing to ask more, they are willing to answer one. So, I think that’s why one of the other reason I recommend my friends if they want to travel, Sri Lanka is a good place. However, they are not exposed much to tourism yet, they wouldn’t have a very clear division of traveller, tourist, and local.

Yeah. So you don’t have to be alert all the time. So you can really like take your pacing slowly.

Ho Kae Jing

Most memorable experiences?

My most memorable moment I think will be in the mud house because fairly speaking, it has been so long that since I know the days and nights, your days just extend into the night and then the night just extend into the morning. Because anytime that we sit on the light there is no difference. So, while we were at the mud house then the moment the sun set that’s it.

It’s sleek black nothing that you can see. So, after the dinner, we all cycled back using our torchlight and then when you look up, you can see the stars. It is cooler for you to sleep outside than to sleep inside. It’s actually better for you to sleep outside and then you can hear the mosquito, you can hear the sounds of the bird early in the morning. So, you really feel that we are actually so disconnected from the nature already.

You already forgotten about day and night, already forgotten about how it is like to be in even the semi nature. We have to bath before the sunset because you can’t even see where the soap is, we don’t even know where the towel is. Slightly better that ‘orang asli’ like where civilization first started.

Asst. Prof. Ar. Chia Lin Lin

On train, actually happened to Miss Doris. No, because we were quite shocked because when in the train, we did nothing special but everyone was staring at Miss Doris because she’s wearing a shirt with a Buddhist character. Then, there is this gentleman that approached us and told us that is quite rude to wear Buddhist on your clothes which is considered disrespect in Sri Lanka. It is shocking because the train is a long time journey so all the times everyone just look at Ms Doris. It was very unforgettable.

Ho Kae Jing

ADVISOR Doris Quek Shu Han PROGRAMME LEADER Shirley Syn See Bui CONTENT LEADER Emmelia Anne Quek Yuen May MULTIMEDIA Miao An Nan Alvin Ng Poow Foong DOCUMENTATION TEAM Edwin Seng Yong Wei Fong Li Theng Eunice Tan Kai Yi Lim Kai Xuan Lean Soong En Chen Yen Jia Chang Chee Yoo Chong Li Min Tan Wei Zhe Lai Zhi Zhen Mandy Lai Ping Jie Joanne Tong Lai Mun