The Father of Tropical Modernism
pick 1 architect that you are most influenced by in terms of design thought. show examples of his design thought through his projects. Show your own design project to give evidence of the influence.
Geoffrey Bawa
there’s a period of time, that i’m very obssessed with critical regionalism. I basically went through all like-mind architects that favor regionalism. Departing from Kenneth Frampton’s book “Towards critical regionalism”, i begin a journey of studying architects’ approaches such as Glenn Murcutt, Andra Matin, Kevin Mark low, and finally Geoffrey Bawa. Geoffrey Bawa in particular has the greatest influence in me until todays. I’m very inspired by how he created such a poetic atmosphere in a region where share the similar context with us, in Malaysia. I even tried to trace his drawings as I would be able to understand deeper about his philosophy towards design, just as what Tadao Ando did with Le corbusier.
Now back to the topic, Geoffrey Bawa is a late born architect which his architecture career began when he was 37 years old after gaining a diploma of architecture from Architectural Association, London. He is very aware of indigenous crafts and also the local climates that is totally different from a temperate climate region. In another words is the sensitivity towards the environment we lived in, Peter Zumthor is another architect that possessed this similar characteristics. I like how he create the poetic experience with tropical plants and indigenous material. In my opinions, De Silva House is the best example of expressing Bawa’s design approaches.
Garden and Axonometrics of De Silva House
De Silva House is residential house for Mrs.Ena de Silva located in suburb near Colombo. The house is organized towards a central garden courtyards and surrounded with high walls. The garden courtyard in the center that created it’s own scenery and there’s no reason for any exterior scenery views. The philosophy behind the garden courtyards and with high walls surrounded is to segregate client from the intense outside world and enjoy those particular private moments. The harmony atmosphere with nature inside is so pleasant and poetic that is like creating a Shangri-la, or Peach Blossom Land for people to live in, to escape from any part of the reality. Besides, the tectonics of this house is essentially local available. The house fitted into the environment that it’s doesn’t look alien to the place at all. The other good examples that owns the similar expressions are The garden lunuganga, 33 lane house and the other de silva house in Galle, Sri lanka.
In my studio 2, I attempted to learn the way Geoffrey bawa’s approaches in my retreat house project and later it becomes the “nature symphony retreats”. My idea that driven this design is to create a facades that birds could reside and people are able to exposed to nature without compromising the living experience. In this design, there is a garden courtyard with a picnic tables. People could enjoy this small private but open outdoor spaces watching the leaves fall, birds flying across trees, and just simply daydreaming. This garden courtyard is segregated by a wall that separate it from the main road, it is to filter the intense elements such as car swooshing sounds.
Learning from great architect like Geoffrey Bawa is a important lesson for me. He translate his philosophy into architecture in a very gently way and it is to provide the pleasant built environment for clients. He design is not attention seeking or branded with any fancy-future-utopian-lifestyle-slogan, but a good dedicated work itself. Architect with a great attitude like him should be celebrate more rather than those who compromised to capitalism.
-fins-
