Homes and lifestyle Unit 14

speaking How important to you is your home? Is it important to you that your home is attractively designed and decorated? Why? Why not? Would you prefer to live in an urban or rural environment?

I believe that the way people live can be directed a little bit by architecture. (Tadao Ando, Japanese architect) Imagine that you are urban planners. An area of old abandoned housing in the historical centre of your town is to be demolished and a new housing estate built in its place. Together, work out a general design for the new housing estate. Make a list of details you would include in your design (e.g., what the houses would be like, inside and out; what infrastructure there would be, etc.). Bear in mind the quote above, and consider how features of your design will affect the lives of those living on the estate.

Do you agree that it should be law that all newly built homes should be environmentally friendly and include energy-saving devices?

House in Sri Lanka by Tadao Ando House in Sri Lanka by Tadao Ando

The House in Sri Lanka, or so called by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando who designed it, is set against a paradise on earth. White sandy beaches, dotted with coconut palm trees and huts draped with leaves from these trees, weave in and out of cliffs in Mirissa, located at the southern tip of Sri Lanka. Crocodiles and water snakes splash in its rivers, black monkeys, wild elephants and even leopards roam freely on its land. Local fishermen languorously wait for fish to swim towards them on wooden sticks firmly wedged into the sand along the edge of the sea. The name of the house is perhaps enough to suggest its majestic presence: clad in exposed concrete, the house perches on top of a cliff, as if it were indeed a leopard whose claws edge towards the Indian Ocean.

Designed for a married couple, the three-storey house incorporates a glazed study for the husband and an artist’s studio for his wife. Light floods into this ground floor studio though a two storey-high window, which is divided into four by a large steel cross. The glazed study is located on the first floor and is accessed via a zig-zagging staircase, which ascends from the 20 metre-long living room. Outdoor terraces also step between the ground and first floors, while an infinity pool projects over the living room roof. Furniture throughout the house is monochrome, including a teak and cardboard table designed by Shigeru Ban.