Shotgun Shacks, Crackheads and a Rockstars Strange Futuristic Toilet

The Flaming Lips Wayne Coyle takes us on a tour of his house in the midst of refurbishment. Finished it packs a little more heat than this crappy video suggests, take a look at the pictures at Design Milk.

Real Organic Architecture

While I travelled around Sri Lanka before I left a few weeks ago I was lucky enough to visit the stunning jungle abode  of Sri Lankin artist Laki Senanayake which is called Diyabubula, near Dambulla.  Calling Laki an artist is a bit of an understandment, he is also known as draftsman, architect, artist,  painter, birdwatcher, naturalist, sculptor, inventor, gardener, landscaper, etc etc.  An artist in the mold of De Vinci perhaps.  We spent a lovely evening and beautiful rare cool night upon Lakis platform in the jungle, a house without walls that floats above his carefully flooded property.

(Click on the pictures for full size photos)

Laki worked as one of Geoffrey Bawa’s main draftsmen and landscape advisers, and without any formal training as such he has more knowledge of how to build both houses and landscapes than most other people on the island; architects or not.  His latest design invention, which he is happy for me to promote, is his startling a-frame palm tree house, or Areca Palm house, which can be seen below.

On first glance this looks like a tidily designed and well proportioned A-frame house with a raised timber platform inside to provide a bedroom and bathroom.  Upon close inspection I was startled to see that the Areca Palms are infact pre-grown and then re-planted on an angle to provide the primary structure.  As can be seen in the photos these palms are alive and still growing vertically! Because this construction process relies largely on pre-grown palms and labour (which is compartively cheap in Sri Lanka), it is a much cheaper model for housing than alternative conventional one or two bedroom options.  ( If anyone has any further questions about this amazing house and its construction please contact me mrbarnabyb(at)gmail.com and I’ll pass them onto Laki)

Purpose

This entry follows on from the excellent dialougue started by Monsieur Fincham, where he argued, amongst other things, that creating Architecture is an inherently intellectual activity and that Architects should be more aware of this.

I take something of a big-tent approach to design and architecture and prefer not to spend too much energy following the seams and fissures in language which are used to divide disciplines, and so I’m quite comfortable with the idea that design is an inherently intellectual activity.

I’d like to renew this discussion by exploring a specific aspect of these statements.  I am personally rather ambivalent about the need for Architecture or Architects to realise the intellectual component of their disclipline as I find the concept of Intellectualism, or the Intellectual rather void of meaning until there is some content poured into the phrase.  For my mind being intellectual is a means, not an ends, and is a rather neutral position until the ends are more explicitly explored.     So I’ve become curious to understand what the purpose of intellectualism is?

Purpose is itself an interesting word which in this context is meant to suggest force and direction rather than a neat resolution.  It asks what is the tractory of intent of Intellectualism?  Where does it lead?  I fear if we don’t ask these questions, and answer them honestly we risk becoming trapped by our own language, becoming imprisoned in our own textual constructions.