Space planning for urban dwellings in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The history speaks only about the buildings built on the ground. This is obvious and easily justifiable in a context where ample space had to be matched against limited requirement. In other words, excess surface space was available when compared with the need for space./ Unless the building was put up as a monument, it wav not at all required to use the vertical space. Later, with the social, economical and cultural implications of the industrial revolution, it was felt that the urban space is facing a threat of scarcity. The movement of people and activities towards cities created a huge demand for urban space but the effective space that a city could provide was limited and scarce. To bring in some light for this crisis, the architects were compelled to generate more space in two ways, firstly by being innovative on the usage of surface space and secondly by encroaching into vertical space in absence of having freedom to extend horizontally./ All in all, space today, either urban or rural, is a scare resource – once utilized cannot be reversed unless an extreme cost is incurred. To avoid the repercussions in the future, it is the prime responsibility of the Architect to run all his ideas and creations through this bottleneck before having the things off the ground. The objective of this study id to set a up a simple space planning process that could be adopted in generic terms and to establish the application in urban dwellings in Sri Lanka.