In Conversation: Palinda Kannangara

PK: I am very selective in my work.

ZA: Alan Tay, from Formwerkz, was just sharing with us how you choose certain projects.

PK: Yes correct.

ZA: Are there some projects like towers that you’d like to do?

PK: I have not say no to anything, but the projects select me and the people know what I am doing. So they know that I am not doing towers, so they don’t ask me to do towers.

ZA: There has to be understanding that when they come to you, they come for a certain sensibility.

PK: I need to show them some point of reference when they want to get things done. I ask whether they have seen my work or why they like it?

ZA: A mutual understanding?

PK: If they’re just looking for an architect, I can’t work. Because I am not just an architect, all the projects I am doing it for myself. This is just another project for me like that. People ask me how do you design for yourself, and I think that’s the hardest thing to do. You want to try to do everything that you learned, but it was not like that. So this was just another client, the client is me. I knew what I wanted and I just designed in one sketch and that’s it. I didn’t change much, just a few elements, some small details. Otherwise it’s just the same design.

(Palinda leads us to the office)

PK: This is the only room that requires air conditioning. Are all you architects?

ZA: I am Kate’s mom.

PK: Oh I see! And what about both of you fininshed, recently?

ZA: We are both in our final year at NUS.

PK: I was at NUS but that was during the holidays. We had a small barbeque and all that, near your campus. That was the last day of your campus opening.

PK: They were saying that the campus is permanently closed for a couple of months. Is it closed already?

ZA: Not completely, some parts. We are still getting some spaces to work. The studio space is slowly getting smaller.

KL: That’s right.

PK: So basically, we start with physical models. We don’t do like 3D or anything like that. We like to use physical materials, and it helps us in our design. You can pick it up, feel it, turn it around. Some are just massing, some are just study models. This is the extent of the office.

KL: How many people are here?

PK: Its all here, 8 in total. Sometimes I get an intern from some other country, he was here maybe 6 months back. Because of the visa, is not easy to get it here. So most of our staff are from India, and Bangladesh. So far I am open, I am getting some from European countries but so far they run into issues of visa.

PK: So basically, this house is facing the west sun. This is the east. So in Sri Lanka we have to respond the sunpath, otherwise you are getting too much heat and light from the sun. So the facade is thick with only a few perforations to prevent the excessive heat from coming in. The other thing is the traffic and the view, is not favourable so therefore we control it using the facade. So that’s the story behind the project, how I control the light and the combination of these spatial means.

ZA: The perforations are performative?

PK: Yes in a sense. They control the light and the allow cross ventilation through, this you will see in the upper levels. Come with me.

(Points to the operable windows near the facade)

PK: These are louvers, so you can open and close them as you wish - as and when you use air conditioning. Here I was trying to keep it open, but humidity is very high in Sri Lanka, so you can’t have this fully open, when the computer is on, they generate a lot of heat, so you can’t fully open in the office. But here in the upper level, you can leave it fully open, and again you cut off the neighbourhood, but you see parts of it.

PK: And to operate these louvers, you have to open it at one go. These are standard louvers that are appropriated to be used in vertical format. I just turned it the other way. There’s so many advantages to this, you can clean it so easily! So I have an issue with the bigger window, every panel I can’t clean. So I’ll have it cleaned maybe once a year. But its ok, there is no dust coming from there. This is basically my private space, sometimes the meeting space extends up here. This is a living space basically. There is another space upstairs, where I mostly take guests - so come!

PK: This space is my bedroom, I have another guest room below, but now I have given it to the dog.

(laughter)

ZA: How long has this building been built?

PK: Its only 3 years. Since 2015, not more than 3 years even. It looks old, but the building is finished like this. I hope it doesnt age any further.

ZA: Is the construction process done through local builders?

PK: Yes it is usually a local builder. I have this one guy in my few projects, I work with a small team. One guy even, he is not a contractor, he’s a basic worker and another two helpers. Same person did the wall up to this level. From the ground up till the very top. Concrete is done in timber panel work and its all done with just one panel. You can see the join here. Here is one panel, and here another one. One module repeats for every 3 feet, so it took a little bit of time. Its not fast, where usually its done every 10 feet. I repeat 3 times before moving up to the next level. Its a little bit of time consuming work, in Sri Lanka we have time. Maybe its different from Singapore, where time is of the essence, here we have plenty of time. You start a two year project, it might be three years. For this project, there is definitely no pressure. I just thought of building it. Now you can start to see the sun come in, where this small patches of light fall, you can see how harsh that sun is, and how the wall is protecting against it. Come lets go up!

(We head up towards the final floor of Palinda’s residence.)

KL: Interesting furniture!

PK: Do you know what is that? It’s actually old printing press stencils. Letter setting tray, where they would select alphabets from for the printing press. So one would take up their different alphabets for printing newspapers and send them for printing. Its from an antique shop! I thought it made for a very nice facade, very Corbusian no! I thought what a nice coffee table!

ZA: Its very peaceful in this area.

PK: Yes, and it is not very far from Colombo. Where are you staying at the moment?

ZA: At the Fairway Colombo.

PK: Ah okay! That is fort. On a Saturday its easy, on Sunday you would run into abit more traffic. You cant get this kind of natural setting in Colombo, where youre surrounded by birds, bats and all sorts of wildlife.

ZA: I noticed there are some kind of new towers here. What is happening?

PK: Yes, there are all these new developments in the city, Moshe Safdie is here, and there all these other apartments coming in.

ZA: Where is the money coming from?

PK: Actually, these are for investors, like foreigners, or expatriates. Most of them are for rent, people who are living here are very few. And this is not their only house, they have an extra party place. Its just an investment, for example if that house costs 30 million now its like 50 million. After complete, you can sell it. Especially the foreigners, who can buy easily.

ZA: I saw that you had a new project, the book building.

PK: Oh yes, how do you know that?

ZA: I follow you on instagram.

PK: Let me get something for you, some warm water? I can get you a tea. With milk or without milk?

(Palinda rings for his helper to prepare some tea)

PK: Yes the book building is being constructed and is almost done, but it is not open yet. I have not even photgraphed it yet. People have not moved in yet. Without the people, I think the building is not functioning for me.

ZA: So you like to take the pictures of your buildings with people inside?

PK: I do want to have, because its a public project. It has a small auditorium of 250, it has a small library, it has a book store. So basically its called a book stack building, I wanted to see the elevation like a kind of stacking, the concrete walls have lines.. It looks like that (points to a magazine shelf) the building looks like that! The design is made out of all concrete, its an in situ method, not pre cast. Sometimes I have seen other building, they have made fiberglass panels, which they pour the concrete and fix it against the wall. So everything is done on site. Its not easy to get that finish out of concrete nowadays, you have to be careful when they are removing the corners can break. And they have done a good job.

ZA: Did you use a special aggregate for the building?

PK: No, nothing. Just ordinary plywood, and I offer up a new method. In Sri Lanka, we don’t have a lot of concrete buildings. So its very few projects, I am the only person really doing in concrete. There are other people doing it, but they cover the material. They don’t want to keep concrete as a material. I don’t like fake building, do something and then cover it like timber, or stone or something else. I don’t do that anyway from my start. The material contributes to the design. I want the concrete as an interior finish, as well as a material that doesn’t reflect light. Its like an aperture that you leave fully open, and you let the light in. You can’t get a nice photograph if your shutter speed is too fast. Likewise I am trying to do in this, I am trying to fully absorb all the light that is coming into this room. You know the walls help to reduce the amount of light coming in, otherwise we can’t sit like this. You have some white buildings that have too much glare. Here I dont have too much glare, I can focus straight to the outside. That is the one thing which is good about the concrete. I am also very particular with the colour of the cement, we did the tests with different batches, and bags of cement, and we found the correct concrete colour. The concrete comes in white, green and even beige sometimes. So, which colour you want is something you need to experiment.

ZA: Have you experimented with pigmentation?

PK: I have not done adding colour, I might do that I was thinking. Even both projects, are all natural cement colour. But yeah, its nice to have a pigment, but you need to have a right project for that. It depends on the context, and everything has to come from the design process. I will never use anything that is superficial. I like rammed earth, but I never want to impose it on the next project. If the project requires rammed earth, I will do it. That’s it. Some people are only doing it in rammed earth, some are only doing in concrete, I never want to have that in my architecture. I do this concrete, next one is maybe timber, next one is maybe totally brick, next one is totally rubber. So, that’s the way you should be. Otherwise it is totally biased with the material you want. It is not for me. I am totally open to other materials in my architecture. There is a guideline and discipline always that controls your architecture, and that is you. It has to be like that, because when somebody sees that they will be able to say oh this is by Corbusier or this is by Louis Kahn, this is by WOHA. Kerry Hill projects, you could probably tell it’s him. And that is beyond material, its because of something behind the design process. My storyboard or design process is always behind the context. You know in the book building, I want to extend the cantilevered part, its alot of stacked elements. Without concrete, you won’t be able to achieve it, brick won’t work. The whole structure is harnessed from the inside core and the exterior is held by cantilevering fins from this core. It’s a beautiful structure design.

ZA: In the projects, there seems to be a certain consistency in the way the buildings are presented. For example, in this building, you can read the inside and the outside and I feel like that there is a recurring thing in all projects.

PK: Yes, I think it is a consistency, that is coming from me. Connection, landscape, giving respect to the nature and trying to be a part of the nature, that’s what I am trying to do. That is within me, I can’t help, and I can’t change it. I am Sri Lankan, and we learn these things. Sri Lankans we always try to connect with the nature and we always try to be a part of the nature. We can’t reject, we have to accept it. We have a culture coming from Buddhism and its connected. We are by force, to place our building in a very nice environment - so we have to give back. I am not saying that a building with a roof garden is a good enough effort, it has to be beyond that. I know Singapore government is saying that, but those are rules, just to sustain the environment and by law you have to give back. I am thinking the other, we have to be sensible and sensitive to nature, without imposing. Then its very natural and not artificial.

(Palinda receives some tea and snacks)

See you have to eat the Kande leaf, and we eat with the nature as well. Just remove the leaf and eat the filling.