Since the dawn of recorded history on the island of Sri Lanka , man-made water systems have been very much a part of its landscape. In the story of the arrival of Vijaya the prince who began the dynasty of Sri Lankan kings, Kuveni, the island princess, imprisoned his companions within a “wewa”, a reference to an artificial body of water used in irrigation. This origin story was written in the 5th century by the monk Mahanama, in the reign of Dhatusena, whose son Kassapa I would go on to make one of the great gardens of the world with water and its control at its centre. (Monsoons continue to activate the water garden and its fountains and waterways beside its formal central axis, which led from the western gate of the extraordinary royal complex.) By then the island civilization had had a millennium or more of perfecting the control of water for irrigation.
The historic system of distributing water and the formal structure of the gardens at Sigiriya were the inspiration for the gardens of the Water Garden Hotel as well. Set against the Sigiriya rock five kilometres away and on abandoned paddy land covered in an invasive species of grass, the Water Garden Hotel in Sigiriya was designed with the axial organization of the garden around it.
Dhatusena’s Jaya Ganga still brings water from his great irrigation reservoir, the Kala Wewa, a full 90 kilometres to his capital Anuradhapura, at a drop of 2.5 centimetres per 1.6 kilometres. This “river of victory” was unprecedented at the time and displays the mastery over water that had been achieved. Over the almost 2,000 years of its existence, these works—engineering the distribution of water for the cultivation of paddy and other crops—have shaped the landscape of the north central region of the island. A millennium and a half later, the modern and contemporary irrigation works have only been able to enhance the existing systems. Till now, come the first day of the cultivation season, farmers in this region have come to expect the free flow of water into their fields. And it indeed does.
The axial organization of the garden is around a central water canal and earth bund reminiscent of the traditional irrigation networks in the rest of the country.
It is this system of distributing water and the formal structure of the gardens at Sigiriya that were the inspiration for the gardens of the Water Garden hotel, designed in 2016. A fortuitous position that was occupied by the Sigiriya rock, five kilometres away, in relation to the abandoned paddy land covered in an invasive species of grass, that was to be converted to the hotel complex, allowed for establishing the central axial organization of the garden. The rest of the project was about the idea of how the biannual flow of water into the now abandoned paddy fields could be used to still provide employment to the local population, now less interested in paddy cultivation.
Water in a garden is always a great attraction for anyone. The water garden harnesses the incoming flow to animate the site with fields, canals, lakes and ponds. Careful planting of local flora defined by the different types of aquatic habitats that have been created allows for a variety of fauna to occupy these places. From being an abandoned piece of land, the landscape is now a thriving and varied ecosystem.
Evening light filters through the timber screens of the spa entrance.
Lily ponds surround the courtyard spa building that floats over one of the ponds.
The cement jali above the entry pavilion screens the staff offices on top but allows the breeze to ventilate the working spaces.
The complex is structured around a central axial walkway, reminiscent of the structure of Sigiriya, which connects an open-sided reception pavilion to the rock. An avenue of kumbuk (arjun) trees placed on islands on two large ponds on either side of the walkway, helps focus on the rock in the distance. At its midway, the axis changes from a walkable path of a central water channel with a small walkway on one side, leading to the accommodations placed on stilts floating over the low-lying land partly under water and partly cultivated with a biannual paddy crop. A small pavilion at the end of the axial canal houses the main control sluice that allows water into the property and can be closed off in case of a flood. Two other sluices control the exit of water into the Sigiriya Oya, a small river lined with kumbuk trees and other forest plants, that flows on one side of the property. All the water entering the property eventually collects in an eight-acre lake at the entrance to the site, now filled with water birds, and the excess spills over a causeway back into the river, ready to be useful further downstream as it has done for millennia.
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