Chapter Four

W ORKPLACES

The architecture of the workplace in Sri Lanka was first explored by the British whose built legacy consisted mainly of utilitarian structures. They constructed factories to support the plantation industries and office buildings to house their burgeoning bureaucracy. During the years up to Independence the commercial sector was dominated by the work of British architects Edwards, Reid and Begg who bequeathed a considerable legacy of neo-classical bank façades to the central business district as well as designing factories and office buildings in the suburbs. Their output was matched by Neville Wynne-Jones who, as Chief Architect to the Public Works Department, designed an enormous number of public buildings. Both produced designs with heavy façades and deep plans which relied on building mass to temper the tropical climate. As a result their building interiors were often dark and stuffy, and failed to provide a comfortable or stimulating working environment.

Inevitably, it was Geoffrey Bawa who produced the pioneering designs for workspaces in Sri Lanka. His ground-breaking office buildings included the step-sectioned office building for the Steel Corporation at Oruwela of 1966, the elegant speculative office building in Matara of 1970, the Agrarian Research and Training Institute on Colombo’s Wijerama Mawatha of 1974 and the innovative State Mortgage Bank (aka the Mahaweli Building) on Colombo’s Hyde Park Corner 1976. In all of these projects Bawa was experimenting with ways of creating naturally lit and ventilated workspaces in a tropical urban environment. Anjalendran, it could be said, has continued where Bawa left off.

Anjalendran was no stranger to the design of large public buildings: during his stay in Bawa’s office Anjalendran worked, amongst other things, on new offices for the British Council in Colombo, and after joining Surath Wickremasinghe in 1980 he was made the project architect for a new wing for the Colombo International Airport. It was after he quit Wickremasinghe’s office in 1982 and started to work on the verandah in Gregory’s Road that Geoffrey Bawa offered him his first independent commercial commission: a project to convert an old bungalow into an advertising agency. They worked on this small project together, with Bawa providing the design concept and Anjalendran acting as project supervisor, and eventually split the fees and took joint credit.

Courtyard in Saffron Villa showroom

The Ellawala gem factory

MILCO OFFICES

Narahenpita 1987

The Milco office building was a rushed job on a small budget. The national milk distribution company wanted a new office for a processing plant in a southern suburb of Colombo. The site sloped steeply from south to north towards the entrance and an old bungalow occupied its northern corner. The Milco directors had employed a contractor to build an earlier design but called a halt after the foundations had been laid when they realised that it relied on internal columns.

Anjalendran was called in to produce a new design without columns, with the proviso that he had to use the existing foundations.

His solution was to take advantage of the site slope and raise the office on a stone plinth, creating a cave-like entrance tunnel under the building in the manner of Bawa’s Bentota Beach Hotel. The north end of the building was allowed to crash into the old bungalow which was converted into a staff canteen and recreation area. The ten-metre-wide office space was spanned with simple pre-cast concrete portal frames which supported a roof of Portuguese clay tile on corrugated cement sheets. The plan stepped up at the centre and the manager was given an office on the upper level with a commanding view over the general office. The large window openings were left unglazed and were protected by deep overhanging eaves and metal security grills. The result was a large, well lit and airy working environment. Large windows were placed in the two gables to accentuate the axiality and exploit views of existing trees while the southern gable wall was adorned with an impromptu mural by Laki Senanayake. The project took three months from design to completion and cost a total of Rs. 2 million (then equivalent to US$ 50,000).

View of the entrance and the upper office

Entrance façade

Upper floor plan

The end gable

The main office with murals by Laki Senanayake

GEM FACTORY AND OFFICES FOR ELLAWALA EXPORTS

Nugegoda 1992–94

The production building

Ellawala Exports is a family jewellery business which has strong links with Japan. It was founded by Tom Ellawala, though he has recently handed over day-today management to his two sons, Chanaka and Suresh, and now prefers to spend his time tending to his mango orchards. Their factory and offices were originally located above and around the family house in the central residential district of Colpetty. In 1990, however, they decided to invest in a purpose-built factory and acquired a site on the southern edge of Colombo, close to where many of their existing workers lived. Anjalendran had previously done pro bono work for the Colombo Samaritans where he had met Tom Ellawala’s wife, and it was through this link that he was invited to design the new complex.

The clients’ brief was both complex and circumscribed. Theirs was one of the biggest gem-cutting and jewellery manufacturing operations in Sri Lanka, and they were proposing to build what would be the country’s largest purpose-built gem factory, employing over three hundred skilled workers. Their site faced the busy High Level Road which runs south-eastwards out of the city towards the main gemming areas of Ratnapura. It was fan-shaped with a narrow street frontage, which suited them because they wanted to maintain an anonymous presence behind a discreet entrance façade. They placed a high value on creating pleasant and comfortable working conditions with good natural daylighting, proper sun-shading and the possibility for adequate cross-ventilation. It was also necessary to install measures to guard against theft of gems and precious metals, and to incorporate systems for recovering fine particles of gold dust from the building fabric and the waste water systems.

Anjalendran’s design divided the brief into two main elements: a diminutive two-storey office and reception building facing the street behind a high blank stone wall and a large six-storey production building towards the rear. These two elements were aligned to suit the shape of the site and were separated by a spiral of planted terraces on different levels, reminiscent of one of Escher’s perspective puzzles.

The single entry from the street served staff, visitors, deliveries and dispatches and was monitored by a security post and a body-search facility. Bicycle racks and limited car parking were provided under the office building. The porte cochère opened to the lowest of the planted courtyards and connected to a long covered street which provided access to the stair and lift core of the rear production building for workers, materials and fire-fighting appliances. An open staircase led from the central garden court up towards the first upper terrace which gave access to the main suite of offices.

The ground floor of the production building was given over to staff toilets and a canteen which opened into planted courtyards. Above this was the larger of the two production halls — a top-lit double-height space with a supervisory mezzanine running along its western edge. Higher up still the smaller production space, again double-height with a supervisory mezzanine, formed an ‘L’ around an open courtyard. All of the workspaces were light, spacious and airy and all had direct views onto generously planted courtyards. Finally, the highest floor was conceived as a terrace for entertaining clients, exploiting the canopy roof whose real purpose was to shade the flat roof of the production building below. A system of spiralling staircases linked the various terraces and connected the offices to the production and supervisory levels while providing an alternative fire escape system.

The building was well suited to the needs of its initial users, providing a comfortable working environment and meeting the stringent requirements of people engaged in the highly-skilled and intricate work of gem cutting and jewellery manufacture. However, Ellawala Exports was badly hit by the collapse of tourism which followed the 1996 Central Bank bombing, and by the Asian economic downturn of the late 1990s. Forced to downsize, the company returned to its former premises, offering its new factory up for rent. For the past ten years the whole complex has been occupied by a garment manufacturer. Paradoxically, the planning and environment are equally well suited to the needs of the garment industry and the building now serves as one of the most pleasant clothing factories in the country. However, the new tenants did introduce a few small changes: the ground floor now functions as a packing and dispatch department while the staff canteen has been moved up to the roof terrace from where it enjoys panoramic views across the city.

The production building

The central courtyard and office wing

Section and ground floor plan

The top-lit production floor

The central courtyard

Top right

The upper lightwell

SAFFRON WAREHOUSE AND VILLA

Furniture showrooms, Battaramulla 2001, 2003

Anjalendran’s original sketch plan

The final floor plan

The entrance

Milinda Ekanayake started selling and restoring antique furniture during the mid-1990s. As his business prospered he began to import modern furniture from Indonesia and to manufacture new furniture in Sri Lanka using a small network of suppliers. In the beginning he sold mainly to private customers and Anjalendran was amongst his first clients. His early furniture tended to be relatively ornate, but Anjalendran persuaded him to stock simpler and more elegant designs. More recently he has supplied furniture to hotels such as the Beach at Negombo and the Lodge at Habarana.

In 2000 he decided to move his business out to Battaramulla and bought an old house near to his home and not far from Anjalendran’s house. He can’t recall ever having asked Anjalendran to be his architect — Anjalendran simply turned up one day, produced a set of sketches and took over the remodelling of the existing house and the design of the extensions. All of this was achieved using cheap and simple construction with recycled doors, windows and beams. For Anjalendran the project offered the simple pleasure of messing around with an old building and helping a friend, and the old origami challenge of making something beautiful from nothing. He didn’t ask for a fee, but Milinda continues to shower him with choice gifts of furniture!

Saffron Warehouse

The showroom

Verandah showroom

Saffron Villa

Showroom

Pool court

The ‘Saffron Warehouse’ can be compared to Geoffrey Bawa’s own house in Colombo’s 33rd Lane. Subtle changes have been made to the existing structure to set up a strong entrance axis which terminates in a sunlit courtyard and a long cross axis which connects to all the principle rooms. The warehouse functions as a sort of mini IKEA: the rooms of the old house provide the settings for the furniture, and clients can wander around choosing pieces which can be made and delivered to their homes.

The business was successful in its new location and in 2002 Milinda leased another property in the same street naming it ‘Saffron Villa’. Again Anjalendran appointed himself as his consultant and enveloped the original bungalow in a cocoon of simple lean-to sheds. The only consciously architectural elements are the entrance portal, designed as a memory of the recently demolished gable of the Thalapitiya Mosque in Galle, a small reflecting pool and a modern geometric sculpture designed by Anjalendran himself. The magic is achieved through subtle manipulations of light and space and the use of muted colours to camouflage the cheapness of the materials. Not a single tree was cut on either site.

Saffron Villa

The entrance

Milinda Ekanayake in his office

Anjalendran’s original sketch

The final floor plan

OFFICES FOR SAPSRI (THE SOUTH ASIAN PARTNERSHIP FOR SRI LANKA)

Rajagiriya 2003–05

Looking down through the loggia

SAPSRI is an NGO which aims to create new employment opportunities in rural areas and supports weaving and lace-making projects in southern Sri Lanka. It required a new headquarters building in Colombo which would provide office space for its managerial and administrative staff, as well as educational and dormitory facilities.

The site was a small block of land at the end of a narrow lane in an area of Rajagiriya which has recently sprouted a cluster of new office buildings. The back of the site was blessed with a couple of majestic trees and faced west into the shady gardens of an earlier office building by Anjalendran’s friend Anura Ratnavibushana.

The design is a development of the strategy adopted for the Dharmavasan House. The two upper floors float under a large overhanging roof and step back around a triple-height loggia to create open terraces and verandahs. The building is oriented to reduce solar intrusion but the section provides shade and rain-protection while admitting daylight and encouraging cross-ventilation. Only the office spaces and the conference room, which together account for 25% of the area, have the option of air-conditioning. The ground floor is given over to an entrance loggia and covered carport and a large canteen and social area.

A generous staircase leads up to the main office floor where a central waiting verandah serves the main open office, the director’s office and the conference room. The topmost floor is given over to the training facilities and the dormitories.

The building sets up a dialogue with the small rear garden space and the two existing trees, and induces a heightened awareness of changing weather conditions and the passage of time. Tropical rain adds a sense of drama to the central space and the evening sun creates a warm orange light which filters through the trees and washes over the walls. The interiors are filled with light and offer accidental views from room to room and from level to level which seem to encourage a sense of democracy and team spirit.

SAPSRI follows the example set by Geoffrey Bawa in his designs for the Agrarian Research and Training Institute (1974) and the Mahaweli Authority (1976) and offers a potent alternative to the gas-guzzling, glass-walled, fully air-conditioned office boxes which have sprung up in recent years across the capital and now besmirch the main streets of provincial towns. Its construction uses locally available technologies and simple robust materials, thus reducing the capital cost and holding out the promise of easy low-cost maintenance. It imposes minimum loads on local infrastructure and maintains a relatively low carbon footprint.

The loggia

Door to a second-floor guest room

Section

First floor plan

Staircase

The loggia

The entrance to the director’s office