An Ode To Nature

Over a decade after it was ‘built’ Boulder Garden resort continues to offer a unique experience of living in nature. It was designed by Sri Lankan architect Lalyn Collure who won the Geoffrey Bawa Award for Excellence in Architecture in 2008 for its design.

- Brinda Gill

A simple board at Kalawana, in the vicinity of the evergreen Sinharaja Forest Reserve, a Biosphere Reserve and UNESCO World Heritage Site in south-west Sri Lanka, indicates the turn for Boulder Garden. A stony mud path languidly meanders forward without any indication of the resort. A short distance ahead a clearing to the left edged by verdure and rock suggests its presence close by. And then a gap in the curtain of creepers and foliage cascading down a rock face hints at a possible entrance.

In Nature’s Embrace

Slipping through this opening, hemmed by lush ferns, a flight of low stone steps beckons and leads the way past huge boulders, some clasped with thick vines, to a compact level ground. A series of short and long flights of steps – of earth and stone, low and steep, straight and turning, wedged between boulders and open to the elements with tree roots snaking by and an odd tree trunk stretched across – tantalisingly invite one to continue though there are no signs of people. Foliage – natural, mixed, abundant and growing with abandon that speaks of the fecundity of the island’s forests; air heavy with transpiration and flecked with butterflies and birdsong; natural hollows turned pools of water; and sunlight softened as it filters through leaves add to the mysterious ambience.

A few minutes later the ascent reaches a large levelled space akin to a cavernous ancient gathering space with a counter, row of niches for oil lamps in a wall behind it, seating, stone floor and ceiling. Up a few more steps the sudden sight of a mammoth overhanging rock, majestically retaining its cantilevered stance as it protects a platform below it, takes one by surprise. And here are the first sign of life in the form of tables set for diners beneath the stone canopy!