Madhura Prematilleke
Architect/Professor
Colombo

March 2005
August 2005
December 2005
February 2006
April 2006


Submission: "Post-tsunami: Kalametiya"

According to Science magazine, the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake of December 26, 2004 was the largest seismic event on Earth in more than 40 years.  It produced the most devastating tsunami in recorded history, a killer that took the lives of 300,000 persons in the Indian Ocean region.

In Sri Lanka, an island-nation of 19,000,000 people, nearly 30,000 deaths were recorded, over 80,000 houses were destroyed, and 800,000 persons were displaced.

Bio:

Madhura Prematilleke designed the new permanent village of Kalametiya and new houses for its 30 Sri Lankan families displaced by the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 26, 2004.  His office, Team Architrave, may be best known for his design of the Royal Bakery on Galle Road in Colombo, the only Sri Lankan project featured in the Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture (2004).  Additional projects, including the Cashew Tree and Thin Houses, along with the Sun Street office building, were profiled by The Sri Lanka Architect magazine.

Also see: AIArchitect, Architectural Record and CapAsia

March 2005

Dear colleagues;

The CapAsia IV field study group just departed our hotel for the job site where today they will participate in the construction of foundation walls of the first house to be built on the new site of Kalametiya. This village of 30 families was destroyed in the tsunami. It is such a small settlement that it does not appear on any maps of Sri Lanka.....we are approximately 20 kilometers east of Tangalle, the city where we are staying.

Pre-tsunami, Kalametiya's population was 190 persons; 11 were killed in the tsunami, only three bodies were recovered. The village's main organizer is a young woman who was holding her 1-year-old baby as the tsunami hit. They became tangled in a barbed wire fence and as the mother struggled to free them, her baby was swept away. That was the last time Rasika saw Naduni. The mother's body was raked by the fence and two months later, as you might imagine, she still tends physical and emotional wounds.

Just a 30-minute drive to our east is Hambantota, a city of 40,000 where the tsunami killed 10,000 people.

Kalametiya was located on the beach and behind the original village is a large bird sanctuary. Because of these convergences the temporary village (built by Oxfam) is located four kilometers from the water. You can imagine how this has influenced the fishing work of the men, the economy of the region and the dynamics within every family. The new village is 1/2 kilometer to the east of the temporary village.

I arrived last Sunday, and Nihal Perera and the students arrived on Wednesday. Thursday morning we helped clean the lagoon by the old village. It was a powerful experience-we were picking up the remnants of peoples' lives and asked the students to respect the moment, as we retrieved boats, teapots, file cabinets, clothing, family pictures, fishing nets, papers, broken plates, and fence posts. I found someone's passport, and looking through it, tried to imagine the life. We were joined by several hundred locals.

We then visited the temporary settlement. After a few awkward moments we settled down with sketchbooks, watercolors, paints and a Frisbee with the women, men and children of the village. The site where they now live is so dry and arid and hot that only 10 or so families have taken up residence. All others have dispersed to other locations, temporarily.

We are working with a Sri Lankan architect named Madhura Prematilleke. Madhura came to Ball State two years ago to work in my graduate studio for two weeks. He had made earlier connections to Kalametiya and following the tsunami, volunteered his services to the planning, design and construction of the new village.

The size of the village is critical to our experience-even with language barriers we now know many people. All of us feel the strongest of commitments to them and the rebuilding of their lives and houses. At the same time we understand that our role is that of 'catalysts' bringing immediate big energy to the beginning of the new village. But in almost every moment we defer to the people, their local knowledge, and practices.

Two days ago I drove back to the airport north of Colombo to pick up my colleague Tim Gray. That was my first drive along the southern and southwestern shores, which are among the areas hardest hit by the tsunamis. There are thousands and thousands of tents along the beach and just inland, of all shapes and sizes and colors: large tent cities, individual camping tents tethered to destroyed buildings, small tents close to the road. Driving through these devastated areas, all I could think when I saw someone was: "How did that person survive?  What is her story?"

Our plans for this week are to get as many houses underway as possible. This means digging with hand tools in hard pan soil, in the hot sun. We have good breakfasts, drive to the site and work hard for three or four hours, take two- to three-hour lunch breaks at mid-day, and work for another two to three hours in the cooler late afternoon before returning to our hotel for a good dinner. We are drinking great amounts of water, making sure all the students rest in the shade, and using lots of sunblock!!!



It is the most amazing construction site: tractors pulling two-wheeled wagons drop off rough granite stones (foundation), sand and granite aggregate and bags of cement (grout and bond beams), and handmade bricks (walls). One never knows what to expect. We are engaging the locals, laughing with them, trenching together, learning huge lessons from them about decency, hope and friendship. And my goodness, it is something to see a strong American man (not me, one of our students!) outworked by a small Sri Lankan woman!!!

Each house site is overseen by a Sri Lankan mason (a "bas") and his small crew.  Nihal and Tim and I remind our students (and ourselves) that we are here only to begin the project; it is their village, these are their houses and homes, and Sri Lankans have their own sensibilities about building, materials, construction rituals and procedures. We are determined to respect and learn from these local practices and beliefs, even as we use these experiences to ask questions about such moments in the U.S.



Three Buddhist monks came to the site yesterday morning, for the Auspicious Moment at 8:56 when construction began, at a time in alignment with the cosmos. The monks sat and chanted on the site of the first house. The owners had put together a Foundation Stone to be buried under the foundation to bring good karma to the village and people. The husband and wife set a bowl of milk over a small campfire and as the monks chanted the couple tended the small fire intending to boil over the milk to bring good spirits to the house and family. We then spread out among the other sites, where owners built their own small fires, and helped them gather twigs and dried leaves to feed their own fires. We joined these Sri Lankans in bringing the best of spirits to their houses and lives.

To those of you who donated funds to the Lion's Club for use in Sri Lanka, I say thank you. There is great need here....and....I should say, the locals are well on their way to making their own futures, to finding their own way in their new worlds, lives, houses, and occupations.

It is an amazing opportunity for us, the fullest of moments to be alive, to be contributing, and to be understanding the decency and compassion that exists in the world and in our students.

Nihal, Tim, and I are available to talk to your classes.

Sincerely,
Wes Janz
March 7, 2005
Associate Professor of Architecture
Co-Director, CapAsia Field Study Program


August 2005

Perera and Janz returned to Sri Lanka and Kalametiya, with Michael Fifield (University of Oregon) and Vivian Choi (PhD student, UC-Davis).

All the houses were nearly completed.  Most masonry walls and many roofs were completed, electrical wiring was being installed in several houses, door and window frames were delivered to one house, and the village’s cricket field had been dug out.

The villagers appeared more settled in the temporary houses constructed for them by Oxfam.  More of these houses were being occupied, had been expanded with additions, and several television antennas were in place.



Still, the site was quiet, just two young men working on one of the roofs.  There was no energy present, at least on this day.  According to Prematilleke, the villagers were no longer involved in the construction of their new houses.  Several factors seemed in-play: the villagers felt that they were not receiving the funds they had been promised for their new houses, and as a result, became pre-occupied with tallying what was being delivered for their houses and not with the construction itself; and the houses were in need of specialized attention by craftsmen—installing electrical wiring or a tile roof or a door frame takes more training and skill than digging a foundation trench.

December 2005

One week before the first anniversary of the tsunami, the villagers of Kalametiya moved into their new houses.
On December 26, 2005, a ceremony was held to remember those killed in the tsunami.

Photos by Madhura Prematilleke.

February 2006

Students in Janz’s third year architecture studio design a community center for the new village of Kalametiya. 



Working with Prematilleke, a program was developed that included a gathering space for villagers and others on pilgrimage or celebrating a wedding, a small clinic for a doctor or nurse who might visit every week or two, a small pre-school space, and a library wall.  Prematilleke spoke with the students twice via telephone—to introduce the project and to conduct a mid-project review while view ftp sites.  The architect Varuna de Silva spoke with the students from Sri Lanka regarding the tsunami, Sri Lankan culture, and architectural and constructional practices of the country’s southern coast.  Perera was an active participant in the five-week project, as were CapAsia participants Lindsay Bacurin and Kathleen Edwards, both fifth year landscape architecture students.



Teams of three or four students worked on design proposals.  Among our considerations were the building culture of southern Sri Lanka (including materials, practices, practitioners, and sensibilities), urban and building typologies and precedents, the politics of the island-nation (including the on-going civil war), harvesting of sun and rainwater, cultural events of the people of the country and this province, and the works and philosophy of Geoffrey Bawa.  In addition, Perera discussed the upriver and downriver communities designed and constructed as part of the Mahaveli Project—a massive effort to control the waterways of the Central Highlands in order to produce electrical power--of which he was the chief architect/planner.

The scheme shown is by Ryan Ellsworth, Adam Miller, Katie Peterson, and Sarah Shelley.

April 2006

Prematilleke and Architrave design the community center.

 

The 24’ x 100’ facility is located on the site’s eastern edge; plantings will provide a buffer between the community hall and nearby houses.  The open building steps up slightly, rising from the site’s low jungle vegetation to the south towards the village square.  It holds, from south to north, a preschool, library/resource center, clinic, and 24’ x 60’ community hall that pushes into the village square and nestles under a tall tamarind tree; this is a natural gathering place where many persons have rested, including our students.  The community hall and preschool are entered from the west, where, it is anticipated, a courtyard will be shaped as new buildings are added. 

"800,000 Sri Lankans homeless after tsunami"
“Emergency Info,” Disaster Management Unit of the Honorable Prime Minister, February 1, 2005, HYPERLINK http://www.emergencyinfo.gov.lk/index.html (accessed February 1, 2006).