Homes and lifestyle

Unit 14
speaking
 How important to you is your home?

 Is it important to you that your home is

attractively designed and decorated? Why?
Why not?

 Would you prefer to live in an urban or rural

environment?
 I believe that the way people live can be directed a
little bit by architecture. (Tadao Ando, Japanese
architect)

 Imagine that you are urban planners. An area of old abandoned housing in
the historical centre of your town is to be demolished and a new housing
estate built in its place. Together, work out a general design for the new
housing estate. Make a list of details you would include in your design (e.g.,
what the houses would be like, inside and out; what infrastructure there
would be, etc.). Bear in mind the quote above, and consider how features of
your design will affect the lives of those living on the estate.
 Do you agree that it should be law that
all newly built homes should be
environmentally friendly and include
energy-saving devices?
House in Sri Lanka by Tadao Ando
The House in Sri Lanka, or so called by the Japanese
architect Tadao Ando who designed it, is set against a
paradise on earth.

 White sandy beaches, dotted with coconut palm trees

and huts draped with leaves from these trees, weave in
and out of cliffs in Mirissa, located at the southern tip
of Sri Lanka. Crocodiles and water snakes splash in its
rivers, black monkeys, wild elephants and even leopards
roam freely on its land. Local fishermen languorously
wait for fish to swim towards them on wooden sticks
firmly wedged into the sand along the edge of the sea.
The name of the house is perhaps enough to suggest its
majestic presence: clad in exposed concrete, the house perches
on top of a cliff, as if it were indeed a leopard whose claws
edge towards the Indian Ocean.
Designed for a married couple, the three-storey house
incorporates a glazed study for the husband and an
artist’s studio for his wife.
 Light floods into this ground floor studio though a two
storey-high window, which is divided into four by a large
steel cross. The glazed study is located on the first floor and
is accessed via a zig-zagging staircase, which ascends from
the 20 metre-long living room. Outdoor terraces also step
between the ground and first floors, while an infinity pool
projects over the living room roof. Furniture throughout the
house is monochrome, including a teak and cardboard table
designed by Shigeru Ban.