ANARCHITECT’s Take on Tropical Modernism: Harding Boutique Hotel, Sri Lanka

Architecture practice ANARCHITECT has teamed up with Harding Boutique Hotel to bring award-winning design and comfort to Ahangama, Sri Lanka. Set to welcome its first guests in autumn 2019, this six suite hotel will offer a blend of local culture and the comforts of modernism

The soon-to-open Harding Boutique Hotel is inspired by Sri Lanka’s vernacular modernist movement, which mixes modernist architecture with the use of vernacular resources. Materials used throughout the hotel include locally sourced hardwood, concrete and stone, complete with Sri Lankan details.

The property offers a sea view to the south, dense forests of coconut groves to the east and west, and a view of a local community to the north. Ensuring that the hotel is “visually calm”, so as not to spoil the surrounding landscape, is important to architect Jonathan Ashmore.

“It was important for us that the Boutique hotels design responded on all four elevations in equal measure through a clean, contemporary and modern aesthetic,” Ashmore said. “It is visually calm amongst the organic and wild nature that surrounds it and contextual and environmentally responsive through its materiality and natural openness and permeability.”

Sticking to the theme of remaining hidden, ANARCHITECT created a number of intimate seating areas on the landings of the boutique-scale hotel’s central staircase.

The hotel’s six suites have been designed to offer well-ventilated, open spaces that provide an uninterrupted view of the surrounding landscape.

Plenty of thought went into creating a space that could serve guests throughout the year, both in Sri Lanka’s tropical summers and the rainy, monsoon months. The Paul Harding Boutique has been designed to offer comfort during times of high sun, low air movement and heavy downpours.