Port City Colombo competition: ‘Lodiya’ and ‘Wall of Bubbles’ emerge winners
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Tharindu Perera, Pulasthi Handunge and Viranga Waduge
‘Lodiya’, a creative sculpture concept submitted by a team from the City School of Architecture – Tharindu Perera, Pulasthi Handunge and Viranga Waduge, won the Port City Colombo Student Design Competition ‘Envision the Future’ Beach Sculpture category while ‘Wall of Bubbles’ a creative concept submitted by R. Javaneesan, a student from Jaffna studying at the University of Moratuwa, was crowned as the winner of the Interactive Wall design category.
The winning designs will be constructed at Port City Colombo’s Marina district, the Port City said in a media release. The Grand Finale was held as a virtual live event on November 16 via the Port City Colombo Facebook page.
The winning concept for the beach sculpture ‘Lodiya’ narrates the change of time designed with kinetic steel components and copper sheets. It lets the spectators enjoy a dreamy moment in the beach. The two runners up in the Beach Sculpture category were Rochelle Fernando and Lakal Piyarathna from the Academy of Design and University of Moratuwa respectively.
R. Javaneesan
The winner of the Interactive Wall category ‘Wall of Bubbles’ is a design of air bubble-inspired wall where commuters can interact with water bubbles and shapes enabling to relax and release tensions. The runners up of the Interactive Wall category were Nethmini Liyanagamage, Shavendra Goonetilleke, Azamul Huq Abdul Haleem and Ranjaka Kalhara Hettiarachichi from the University of Manchester, University of Melbourne, University of Kent and John Moors University respectively.
A cash prize of Rs. 300,000 was awarded for each category winner while runners up were also awarded with cash prizes.
All submissions were reviewed and judged by a 4-member team of industry experts comprising Ruchi Jayanathan, Anoma Wijewardene, Shilanthi Abayagunawardana and Xia Yuan. The judges shortlisted 10 participants for each category and the top 3 were selected through an expert feasibility committee. Three finalists from each category moved into the final round and were given five weeks of mentoring sessions with design expert Ismael Abdeen and the jurors to further develop their design concepts. During the final presentation process, world renowned architect Cecil Balmod chaired the competition as an honorary judge.