Harsha Munasinghe | George Brown College (original) (raw)
Papers by Harsha Munasinghe
Journal of research in architecture and planning, Dec 29, 2008
Educating an architect is as complex as any other professional. The student, apart from design it... more Educating an architect is as complex as any other professional. The student, apart from design itself, learns many other relevant things and composes all that knowledge in the design studio, which is the most tested pedagogical practice in architectural education. The design studio is dominated by the design tutor, and this power structure has resulted in a particular dynamics that makes the student to treat the designer-trained tutor as a mentor. This guildculture training, in which the student is not free from the biases of the mentor, silences the creativity of the student. The observation of a lack of self-styled approaches to design among the students is a result of this silenced studio tradition, which is defined as the research problem. By testing the strength of critical educational theory as a way of resurrecting the mystique of designing, we aim at contributing towards the development of comprehensive pedagogical tools for architectural education. We, taking samples of students from different years, have used observation, participatory observation and unstructured interviews as methods to collect data. The students are encouraged to perpetuate the intellectual and cultural biases of their colleagues and tutors in the learning critiques, peer critiques, design workshops, lectures, and peer discussions. Facilitating the making of a reflective practitioner, who sets own norms and objectives, is our objective, and this has proven to be a neutral process of learning in order to reform design education.
International Journal of Technology and Design Education, Dec 11, 2022
The architectural design process is a unique process that has its inherent phases with specific a... more The architectural design process is a unique process that has its inherent phases with specific activities within. Exploring and identifying the real design process which occurs within the conventional design studio is the key focus of this study. This study was carried out by adopting systematic literature review methodology. The most relevant articles for the review were identified by applying an inclusion and exclusion criteria based on a rubric developed to find answers to the research questions developed. For the literature review, 50 articles were selected by eliminating the non-related and non-suitable articles based on the rubric developed. The data was analysed by the content analysis based on the Grounded Theory. Grounded Theory was applied to generate a theory based on the data or findings. The results have given data to draw a Design Process model which is specific for architectural design studio practice. It is evident that the lack of integrating the intended user in the design process has impacted the solutions. Furthermore, many scholars have discussed the architectural design process, but there is a significant gap in discussing the involvement of users and context during the design process.
Bhumi, The Planning Research Journal
City becomes conservation-worthy by being a cultural setting. Heritage city, once conserved, shal... more City becomes conservation-worthy by being a cultural setting. Heritage city, once conserved, shall facilitate the continuous evolution of the city culture. Traditio11ally, urban conservation was considered as preserving the physical fabric of a few monumental structures of a city, representing either a building type or an architect. This, compartmentalising the urban space, turning it in to an open-air museum, and replacing some sub-societies with more influential ones, did not facilitate the continuity of the unified image of the city. The result has been the degradation of city life. Our research proposition for urban conservation is to strengthen the container-quality of urban space by protecting the unique image which facilitates dwelling in the city. We interpret urban conservation as strengthening the container quality of urban space by achieving the equilibrium between continuity of heritage values and change ofliving needs. Similar ideas in the works of Sir Patrick Geddes an...
International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment
Purpose The lessons learned from the 2004 tsunami phenomenon fueled the government and other loca... more Purpose The lessons learned from the 2004 tsunami phenomenon fueled the government and other local authorities to strengthen the legitimate background to mitigate such devastation in future events. This study aims to propose a standardized tsunami-resilient construction guideline for Sri Lanka by integrating existing local and international standards. Design/methodology/approach A comprehensive literature survey was carried out to undertake the study, with a wide-ranging content and thematic analysis of existing tsunami-resilient construction aspects in Sri Lanka. Integrating all existing guidelines with international standards, finally, a consolidated guideline with significant tsunami-resilient building aspects was proposed for stakeholders involved with the resilient built environment in tsunami-prone areas, particularly during the building construction in the coastal belt. Findings The existing tsunami-resilient guidelines in Sri Lanka follow similar aspects but in different dim...
The title of the paper does not have the qualities of an academic paper. The keywords are confusi... more The title of the paper does not have the qualities of an academic paper. The keywords are confusing and does not indicate how the paper focuses on a research-worthy topic. The author does not show his/ her views of any of the concepts and seems to use many words, concepts, etc. vaguely. In my opinion this paper is not worthy of publication as it is. The author may have to change it significantly. However, the author has to first make it clear what he or she is studying. Is it just about the terms Research methodology and Research methods are used? Isn't it too narrow and useless for an academic paper?
Top-down approach used to build housing for the Tsunami victims in Sri Lanka evolved around the n... more Top-down approach used to build housing for the Tsunami victims in Sri Lanka evolved around the number of houses destroyed. The selection of land and the number of units to be built were donor-biased decisions. This Building-Numbers may have satisfied the donors and builders for quantification of their achievements but not necessarily the recipients for various reasons. Many recipients have left those houses and some never occupied theirs. Enlarging schism between man, society and place, and further displacing the settler as a result are defined here as the research problem. We have studied a few housing projects in the Southern Province, using a 4 multidisciplintfry approach framed by sociocultural based settlement planning and morphologically oriented house types. We used qualitative research methods to collect field data. Our findings suggest that building of settlements that are beyond mere collections of numbers could have had more success in term of resurrecting the lost villa...
The Institutional chair dimensions used at present are considered to be not matching the body dim... more The Institutional chair dimensions used at present are considered to be not matching the body dimensions of the users of institutional chairs. Several research studies showed that the dimensions of chairs should fit to users' body dimensions with respect to the task to be performed and the chairs with inappropriate dimensions lead to discomfort and low back pain (Oxford,
Journal of Research in Architecture and Planning, 2012
The cities in the developed world make attempts to build complete communities. They continuously ... more The cities in the developed world make attempts to build complete communities. They continuously build facilities and patronize events to bring people back to the city by using the strength of the culture sector. The theme of this paper is the convergence of urban development and culture. The protection and re-use of heritage buildings and infusing cultural activities to the protected built spaces as well as building new cultural facilities and patronising cultural events have taken a significant turn in the developed city since 1980s. This paper, based on a literature survey, looks into the cities in the developed world and focuses on to the cases where the culture sector has been given a special attention. However, it is noteworthy in selecting cultural facilities and events, the city managers have prioritized attracting visitors rather than all residents. Since these activities do not necessarily represent the evolution of the city culture and have failed to congregate the sub-so...
Urban space, which is shaped by the dwelling patterns of a culture, records the evolution of its ... more Urban space, which is shaped by the dwelling patterns of a culture, records the evolution of its identity, and as such acquires a heritage value. This unique way of becoming a heritage emphasises that it is not the walls nor the floor nor the monuments that are facing it, but the environmental quality of the urban space that needs to be paid attention. Each culture proclaims the heritage within its current cultural consciousness; thus protection of this environment quality would enhance a continuous life. The conventional conservation practices, placing priorities with physical elements, pay less attention to the mentioned environmental quality. They, neglecting the evolved activity patterns and concepts, challenge the phenomenological values of the urban space. This paper interprets conservation as a cultural activity, rather than a physical petrifaction of its wall, aimed at signifying the urban space within the present day cultural consciousness. It, assessing heritage values, pr...
International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, 2010
The chairs with mounted desktop are widely used in the lecture halls of Sri Lankan universities. ... more The chairs with mounted desktop are widely used in the lecture halls of Sri Lankan universities. An anthropometric survey was carried out among the university students in Sri Lanka to design fixed-type and side-mounted desktop chair and to assess the comfort levels of it based on the design dimensions. The first part of the study focused on design dimensions of the mounted desktop and recommended the dimensions for it. The side-mounted desktop chair needs to be tested for its effect on posture and comfort with proposed dimensions on user population. Relevancy to industry: The existing design of side-mounted desktop chair is unlikely to satisfy the postural and comfort requirements of university students in their learning environment. The chair that supports the development of healthy and comfortable posture is considered important for students to produce healthy workforce to the industries.
Sustainability is currently the most pressing, complex, and challenging agenda faced by the city.... more Sustainability is currently the most pressing, complex, and challenging agenda faced by the city. The focus of sustainability has turned on to wider issues of environment, ecology and people. Eco-city as a concept has played a vital role in designing new habitats in the city. In the context of promoting nature as bio-centric entity that controls itself, the eco-city has become a life-territory, a place defined by its life forms, topography and biota, rather than by human activities. As a result the concept of eco-city is over-dependent on the carrying capacity of land, thus paralyzing the growth of the city and its social evolution. We intend to test the strength of the evolved city culture as a reliable tool in shaping strengthening the liveability of the city. In Sri Lanka, cities have been built as political cum religious polis since antiquity and they pretty much yet remain politicallycentred, fragmented and nature-represented. Although, the Sri Lankan city is full of trees, it ...
Sustainability has been a pressing, complex, and ch allenging agenda for urbanists. Its focus tur... more Sustainability has been a pressing, complex, and ch allenging agenda for urbanists. Its focus turns on wider issues of environment and societies thus broadening the concept d efine in the Brundtland report. Eco-city, ecologica l footprint, green building and cultural planning are among significant initiat ves resulted by the reincarnation of sustainable d evelopment of Brundtland report. Undoubtedly, nature plays a huge role in defining place-legibility but its perception by inhabitants plays a much big ger role in sustaining that place. Having tested types of cohabita tions of nature and culture, we have made attempts to emphasize the significance of society in interpreting place-legibility for sustainable development. The first administrat ive capital of Sri Lanka, the World Heritage City of Anuradhapura was built as a political cum re ligious polis. The legibility of this city is shape d by its location, evolved hydraulic civilization and values placed subsequently. Th e protecti...
Journal of research in architecture and planning, Dec 29, 2008
Educating an architect is as complex as any other professional. The student, apart from design it... more Educating an architect is as complex as any other professional. The student, apart from design itself, learns many other relevant things and composes all that knowledge in the design studio, which is the most tested pedagogical practice in architectural education. The design studio is dominated by the design tutor, and this power structure has resulted in a particular dynamics that makes the student to treat the designer-trained tutor as a mentor. This guildculture training, in which the student is not free from the biases of the mentor, silences the creativity of the student. The observation of a lack of self-styled approaches to design among the students is a result of this silenced studio tradition, which is defined as the research problem. By testing the strength of critical educational theory as a way of resurrecting the mystique of designing, we aim at contributing towards the development of comprehensive pedagogical tools for architectural education. We, taking samples of students from different years, have used observation, participatory observation and unstructured interviews as methods to collect data. The students are encouraged to perpetuate the intellectual and cultural biases of their colleagues and tutors in the learning critiques, peer critiques, design workshops, lectures, and peer discussions. Facilitating the making of a reflective practitioner, who sets own norms and objectives, is our objective, and this has proven to be a neutral process of learning in order to reform design education.
International Journal of Technology and Design Education, Dec 11, 2022
The architectural design process is a unique process that has its inherent phases with specific a... more The architectural design process is a unique process that has its inherent phases with specific activities within. Exploring and identifying the real design process which occurs within the conventional design studio is the key focus of this study. This study was carried out by adopting systematic literature review methodology. The most relevant articles for the review were identified by applying an inclusion and exclusion criteria based on a rubric developed to find answers to the research questions developed. For the literature review, 50 articles were selected by eliminating the non-related and non-suitable articles based on the rubric developed. The data was analysed by the content analysis based on the Grounded Theory. Grounded Theory was applied to generate a theory based on the data or findings. The results have given data to draw a Design Process model which is specific for architectural design studio practice. It is evident that the lack of integrating the intended user in the design process has impacted the solutions. Furthermore, many scholars have discussed the architectural design process, but there is a significant gap in discussing the involvement of users and context during the design process.
Bhumi, The Planning Research Journal
City becomes conservation-worthy by being a cultural setting. Heritage city, once conserved, shal... more City becomes conservation-worthy by being a cultural setting. Heritage city, once conserved, shall facilitate the continuous evolution of the city culture. Traditio11ally, urban conservation was considered as preserving the physical fabric of a few monumental structures of a city, representing either a building type or an architect. This, compartmentalising the urban space, turning it in to an open-air museum, and replacing some sub-societies with more influential ones, did not facilitate the continuity of the unified image of the city. The result has been the degradation of city life. Our research proposition for urban conservation is to strengthen the container-quality of urban space by protecting the unique image which facilitates dwelling in the city. We interpret urban conservation as strengthening the container quality of urban space by achieving the equilibrium between continuity of heritage values and change ofliving needs. Similar ideas in the works of Sir Patrick Geddes an...
International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment
Purpose The lessons learned from the 2004 tsunami phenomenon fueled the government and other loca... more Purpose The lessons learned from the 2004 tsunami phenomenon fueled the government and other local authorities to strengthen the legitimate background to mitigate such devastation in future events. This study aims to propose a standardized tsunami-resilient construction guideline for Sri Lanka by integrating existing local and international standards. Design/methodology/approach A comprehensive literature survey was carried out to undertake the study, with a wide-ranging content and thematic analysis of existing tsunami-resilient construction aspects in Sri Lanka. Integrating all existing guidelines with international standards, finally, a consolidated guideline with significant tsunami-resilient building aspects was proposed for stakeholders involved with the resilient built environment in tsunami-prone areas, particularly during the building construction in the coastal belt. Findings The existing tsunami-resilient guidelines in Sri Lanka follow similar aspects but in different dim...
The title of the paper does not have the qualities of an academic paper. The keywords are confusi... more The title of the paper does not have the qualities of an academic paper. The keywords are confusing and does not indicate how the paper focuses on a research-worthy topic. The author does not show his/ her views of any of the concepts and seems to use many words, concepts, etc. vaguely. In my opinion this paper is not worthy of publication as it is. The author may have to change it significantly. However, the author has to first make it clear what he or she is studying. Is it just about the terms Research methodology and Research methods are used? Isn't it too narrow and useless for an academic paper?
Top-down approach used to build housing for the Tsunami victims in Sri Lanka evolved around the n... more Top-down approach used to build housing for the Tsunami victims in Sri Lanka evolved around the number of houses destroyed. The selection of land and the number of units to be built were donor-biased decisions. This Building-Numbers may have satisfied the donors and builders for quantification of their achievements but not necessarily the recipients for various reasons. Many recipients have left those houses and some never occupied theirs. Enlarging schism between man, society and place, and further displacing the settler as a result are defined here as the research problem. We have studied a few housing projects in the Southern Province, using a 4 multidisciplintfry approach framed by sociocultural based settlement planning and morphologically oriented house types. We used qualitative research methods to collect field data. Our findings suggest that building of settlements that are beyond mere collections of numbers could have had more success in term of resurrecting the lost villa...
The Institutional chair dimensions used at present are considered to be not matching the body dim... more The Institutional chair dimensions used at present are considered to be not matching the body dimensions of the users of institutional chairs. Several research studies showed that the dimensions of chairs should fit to users' body dimensions with respect to the task to be performed and the chairs with inappropriate dimensions lead to discomfort and low back pain (Oxford,
Journal of Research in Architecture and Planning, 2012
The cities in the developed world make attempts to build complete communities. They continuously ... more The cities in the developed world make attempts to build complete communities. They continuously build facilities and patronize events to bring people back to the city by using the strength of the culture sector. The theme of this paper is the convergence of urban development and culture. The protection and re-use of heritage buildings and infusing cultural activities to the protected built spaces as well as building new cultural facilities and patronising cultural events have taken a significant turn in the developed city since 1980s. This paper, based on a literature survey, looks into the cities in the developed world and focuses on to the cases where the culture sector has been given a special attention. However, it is noteworthy in selecting cultural facilities and events, the city managers have prioritized attracting visitors rather than all residents. Since these activities do not necessarily represent the evolution of the city culture and have failed to congregate the sub-so...
Urban space, which is shaped by the dwelling patterns of a culture, records the evolution of its ... more Urban space, which is shaped by the dwelling patterns of a culture, records the evolution of its identity, and as such acquires a heritage value. This unique way of becoming a heritage emphasises that it is not the walls nor the floor nor the monuments that are facing it, but the environmental quality of the urban space that needs to be paid attention. Each culture proclaims the heritage within its current cultural consciousness; thus protection of this environment quality would enhance a continuous life. The conventional conservation practices, placing priorities with physical elements, pay less attention to the mentioned environmental quality. They, neglecting the evolved activity patterns and concepts, challenge the phenomenological values of the urban space. This paper interprets conservation as a cultural activity, rather than a physical petrifaction of its wall, aimed at signifying the urban space within the present day cultural consciousness. It, assessing heritage values, pr...
International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, 2010
The chairs with mounted desktop are widely used in the lecture halls of Sri Lankan universities. ... more The chairs with mounted desktop are widely used in the lecture halls of Sri Lankan universities. An anthropometric survey was carried out among the university students in Sri Lanka to design fixed-type and side-mounted desktop chair and to assess the comfort levels of it based on the design dimensions. The first part of the study focused on design dimensions of the mounted desktop and recommended the dimensions for it. The side-mounted desktop chair needs to be tested for its effect on posture and comfort with proposed dimensions on user population. Relevancy to industry: The existing design of side-mounted desktop chair is unlikely to satisfy the postural and comfort requirements of university students in their learning environment. The chair that supports the development of healthy and comfortable posture is considered important for students to produce healthy workforce to the industries.
Sustainability is currently the most pressing, complex, and challenging agenda faced by the city.... more Sustainability is currently the most pressing, complex, and challenging agenda faced by the city. The focus of sustainability has turned on to wider issues of environment, ecology and people. Eco-city as a concept has played a vital role in designing new habitats in the city. In the context of promoting nature as bio-centric entity that controls itself, the eco-city has become a life-territory, a place defined by its life forms, topography and biota, rather than by human activities. As a result the concept of eco-city is over-dependent on the carrying capacity of land, thus paralyzing the growth of the city and its social evolution. We intend to test the strength of the evolved city culture as a reliable tool in shaping strengthening the liveability of the city. In Sri Lanka, cities have been built as political cum religious polis since antiquity and they pretty much yet remain politicallycentred, fragmented and nature-represented. Although, the Sri Lankan city is full of trees, it ...
Sustainability has been a pressing, complex, and ch allenging agenda for urbanists. Its focus tur... more Sustainability has been a pressing, complex, and ch allenging agenda for urbanists. Its focus turns on wider issues of environment and societies thus broadening the concept d efine in the Brundtland report. Eco-city, ecologica l footprint, green building and cultural planning are among significant initiat ves resulted by the reincarnation of sustainable d evelopment of Brundtland report. Undoubtedly, nature plays a huge role in defining place-legibility but its perception by inhabitants plays a much big ger role in sustaining that place. Having tested types of cohabita tions of nature and culture, we have made attempts to emphasize the significance of society in interpreting place-legibility for sustainable development. The first administrat ive capital of Sri Lanka, the World Heritage City of Anuradhapura was built as a political cum re ligious polis. The legibility of this city is shape d by its location, evolved hydraulic civilization and values placed subsequently. Th e protecti...