residential/Planned CoMMunity

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Jury stateMent

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residential/Planned CoMMunity Winner

The Kirinda Project is one real estate company’s unique humanitarian and volunteer response to the devastation suffered by one ishing village in Sri Lanka in the aftermath of the great tsunami of 2004. Colliers pooled its and its clients’ resources and expertise to expeditiously and effectively rebuild 50 homes, using traditional materials and methods to sensitively reestablish the village’s cultural, social, and religious underpinnings.

DeveloperColliers Kirinda TrustAthens, Greecewww.collierskirinda.com

Design ArchitectShigeru Ban ArchitectsParis, Francewww.shigerubanarchitects.com

kirinda Projectk i r i n D a , s r i l a n k a

In 2004, the small fishing village of Kirinda, located on the south-

east tip of Sri Lanka, was ravaged by the great Asian tsunami that killed more than 225,000 people in

11 countries. The community was devastated: hundreds of villagers were killed or left homeless, and

over 90 percent of the village’s fishermen lost their livelihood in a single wave. After hearing of and

viewing the effects of the tsunami, Philip Bay, the regional director of Colliers Southeast Europe, was

compelled to act. Identifying Sri Lanka as one of the hardest-hit regions, Colliers International com-

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menced discussions with the Sri Lankan government, offering to contribute its real estate expertise to

the relief effort. Kirinda—one of the most thoroughly devastated communities of the island nation—

was identified, and Colliers was asked to lead the reconstruction initiative.

Colliers International—a property company, not a nongovernmental organization (NGO)—used its

expertise to finance and coordinate the effort to rebuild destroyed homes in Kirinda. The internation-

al real estate organization engaged Paris-based architect Shigeru Ban to create the town’s first master

plan, which governed the sustainable reconstruction of 50 single-family homes across the village’s

worst-hit area.

The organization approached the project and the village residents as clients, rather than as recipi-

ents of disaster relief. Many NGO relief organizations in Sri Lanka—although operating with the best

intentions—hastily assembled concrete domiciles without input from the community or consider-

ation of the culture and history of the inhabitants. In the worst cases, relief agencies squandered re-

sources or skimmed donations, offering false hope to many devastated areas.

At Kirinda, a number of town-hall meetings with displaced inhabitants, local government officials,

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147

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PhOTOgRAPhS bY kIRINDA TRUST–COLLIERS INTERNATIONAL

and religious leaders informed and guided the master plan. The foremost desire of the local commu-

nity was to restore the original village layout and its focal point: the mosque. Cognizant of avoiding

community fragmentation—an unintentional byproduct of other rebuilding efforts in Sri Lanka—the

project constructed the new houses on the exact plots of their destroyed predecessors. Furthermore,

deeds and titles were drawn up for each of the inhabitants, allowing the villagers to engage more fully

in the economy by using their homes as collateral for traditional loans.

Shigeru Ban, well known for his application of sustainable architecture in refugee and disaster

areas elsewhere in the world, was selected to design the Kirinda project. Through research on the

history of residential construction in Sri Lanka, Ban discovered little indigenous use of concrete

on the island and much greater reliance on local resources, such as teak, rubber tree wood, and

earthen materials. Nowadays, concrete is readily available and is the product of choice for most

construction sites in Sri Lanka; however, the material retains heat—a severe disadvantage in Sri

Lanka’s sultry climate.

The design team reverted to traditional practice and used all local, sustainable products. The

exterior walls of the houses were constructed with hand-pressed, sun-dried earthen blocks,

site Plan

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ProJeCt data

made from a mix of sand and water, which allow the buildings to breathe in the stifling heat.

Prefabricated interior wall units are made of teak purchased from a national tree farm. The sim-

plicity of the exposed interior will make adaptation, expansion, and repair fairly straightforward,

and the uniformity inherent in the design made construction very cost-effective. The use of local

materials and labor also offered employment for the local people, most of whom had lost their

livelihoods to the tsunami.

The Kirinda Project was funded entirely by money raised at Colliers’ offices, including donations

from employees and clients. To date, the trust has raised LKR 66.7 million (US$620,000), of which only

2 percent is consumed by administrative costs. The trust has only a single employee, the project coor-

dinator based in Sri Lanka. The humanitarian effort relied on the skills of local architects, engineers,

contractors, and project leaders to implement the master plan.

Colliers’ Kirinda Project has become the benchmark by which other disaster relief organizations

are measured. The Sri Lankan government routinely brings visiting delegations to Kirinda, using the

reconstructed village as an example of best practice. Despite Colliers’ complete lack of experience in

disaster relief, Sri Lankan officials have publicly stated that the project was the most professionally ex-

ecuted tsunami-relief project in the country.

Websitewww.collierskirinda.com

Site Area1.2 ha (3 ac)

Facilities50 single-family units

Land Usesresidential

Start/Completion DatesJune 2005–February 2007

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