The Apothecaries building as it was known in its heyday was a purpose built departmental store built in 1915. The restoration of the colonial Era departmental store required a thorough understanding of the layers of history within Fort from how the buildings and street form evolved from Portuguese to Dutch through to British times. 

 

Being a restoration of a listed building, our architectural intervention had to maintain the integrity of structure, yet the client required a proposal for a luxury hotel in order to make the project viable in which we had to come up with the maximum room count along with providing extensive back of house areas. 

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The services and facilities required for the hotel to function were extensive and it was a challenge to incorp-orate all into the existing building. The key to the entire project was to provide as many rooms as possible with views out to the historic Fort area while still maintaining the external façade of the building. Our proposal utilized the existing column bay positions so that the external rhythm of window placement was not disturbed with internal partitions.

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Location: Colombo Fort, Sri Lanka
Status: On Hold