Temporary built environments in Sri Lankan film production design

Abstract

A temporary built environment refers to a spatial arrangement intentionally created or modified for limited duration use, where design decisions are shaped by reversibility, adaptability, and planned disassembly rather than permanence. While this concept is well-established within architectural discourse, comparable spatial conditions are evident in film production design, where environments are constructed, transformed, and dismantled to meet the temporal demands of filmmaking. Despite these visible parallels, film production design has rarely been examined through the broader architectural discourse on temporary built environments. This study investigates Sri Lankan cinema to examine how film production design functions as a form of temporary built-environment practice. A qualitative interpretive approach was adopted, drawing on structured interviews with four experienced Sri Lankan production designers. The analysis was guided by three spatial dimensions identified in architectural literature: temporality, material construction, and experiential narrative organization. The findings confirm that cinematic environments operate through these interrelated conditions while also exhibiting a distinctive characteristic specific to production design: dual functionality combined with operational flexibility. Film sets function simultaneously as representational architecture and as technical infrastructure, requiring continuous spatial adjustment during filming. The study argues that Sri Lankan film production design constitutes a specialized form of temporary built environment practice. By demonstrating how temporally bounded spatial systems operate beyond conventional architectural typologies, the paper expands the discourse on the built environment to include mediated and industrial spatial practices.