Designing in post-tsunami Sri Lanka

Designing in post-tsunami Sri Lanka

A freshly formed publishing collective called Freerange is very proud to announce the launch of Tsunami Box by well known Architect Gerald Melling Old media models (TVs and Newspapers) continue to fold and struggle and the release of this book signals a corresponding shift in the direction of architectural attention. Post-modern has made way for post-disaster:
Tsunami box tells the story of an architectural journey into the heady tropics of emergency housing in Sri Lanka, following the Asian tsunami of 2004. Architect and author Gerald Melling travels to Sri Lanka at the beginning of 2006 and through a mix of serendipity and persistence comes to be the main architect for a new post-tsunami village.

With tenacious commitment, an eye for detail, and a reckless sense of humour, Gerald Melling launches fundamental ideas about architecture onto the troubled waters of post-tsunami re-construction. They sink, of course, but not without a trace – this book offers genuine insight into the nature of ‘good intentions’ and the anatomy of a useful architecture.

Read the first chapter of the book here.

“At little over a hundred pages and generous with its image content, Tsunami Box does well to break with tradition in order to provide an interesting, positive and insightful read with a fresh perspective on how an architect with a strong desire to make a difference might apply his skills to provide a low-cost solution to the noble cause of disaster relief housing.”
Salient

GERALD MELLING

Gerald is a partner in the award winning Architecture firm MellingMorse Architects. In 2008 they won the NZ Home of the Year 2008 with the Signal Box House Masterton, and their Samurai House is featured in the Phaidon Atlas of 21st Century Architecture. Their work has been featured in the following: The Listener, Architectural Review, Architecture and Design, Architecture New Zealand, Urbis, House and Garden, At Home: A Century Of New Zealand Design, World Architecture: A Critical Mosaic 1900 -2000. Gerald has published several books of writing on NZ Architecture; Joyful Architecture: The genius of New Zealand’s Ian Athfield (1980), Mid City Crisis & Other Stories (1989), and Positively Architecture: New Zealand’s Roger Walker. (1985). He has also had his poetry widely published in Landfall, New Canadian Poetry, Post Cards from the Coast (1992), Illustrated Poetry (1968).

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