11/08/2025
“அகம் – Where We Gather, Grow, and Give”
Proposed Community Pavilion at Thettativu, Batticaloa.
By Kamalanathan Pakkiyaraja in Memory of His Father, Mr. Pakkiyaraja Thambiyapa
In the rural context of Batticaloa, the typology of sports pavilions has historically been reductive; conceived as single event infrastructure, their use is often confined to a few days each year. Over time, these structures have become dormant shells, vulnerable to misuse and disconnected from everyday community life. This project challenges that limitation, redefining the pavilion as an architectural organism that breathes with the rhythms of the village. Commissioned by Mr. Kamalanathan Pakkiyaraja, founder of SQM, in memory of his late father, Mr. Pakkiyaraja Thambiyapa, the pavilion is envisioned as a living civic infrastructure, capable of sustaining dynamic program from dawn until late night. Its architectural is rooted in adaptability; spaces that flex in function, dissolve physical boundaries, and maintain visual and social connectivity with their surroundings.
The design emerged through a rigorous participatory process with the client, Vettrivinayagar Sports Club, community members, and educational representatives, reframing the building into three interdependent functions: a sports pavilion for early morning and evening activities, a community library in the mid-morning hours, and a learning center in the afternoon and night. Architecturally, this transformation is enabled through a structured spatial framework - four transformable classroom volumes, a permeable seating gallery, an administrative core, and service units — arranged around a central multipurpose floor. The open planform allowing sightlines across program, enabling supervision during educational use, and maintaining the ceremonial axis to the sports field during events. Movable partitions, lightweight stackable furniture, and concealed storage allow for rapid spatial reconfiguration without compromising the clarity of the plan.
Materiality is informed by the lightness and porosity of the regional vernacular. Locally sourced bricks, perforated masonry, and shaded overhangs create a passive cooling strategy, reducing reliance on mechanical ventilation while framing views of the landscape. The section profile maximizes daylight pe*******on while controlling glare, and its shaded transitional edges become social thresholds; spaces where spectators, students, and villagers naturally converge. The architecture not only serves immediate program but anticipates seasonal shifts, festival gatherings, and evolving community needs, making it a temporal architecture; one that changes identity by the hour, yet retains a consistent spatial character. This is not merely a pavilion; it is an architectural argument for transforming underutilized rural typologies into social condensers, where sport and learning coexist in a single, responsive form.
