With the geometric genius of Le Corbusier’s Barcelona Pavilion as inspiration, notable sustainable architect John Bulcock has created a one-of-a-kind tropical getaway in Walatta House. This oceanfront villa for rent in Sri Lanka combines breezy, open-air volumes with strong, angular spaces for a tropical residence with a polished atmosphere of vintage glamour.

Strong lines, angles, and brawny natural materials make up this neo-modernist, green getaway. The home opens out into a manicured jungle clearing just a few steps from the Indian Ocean and is signed John Bulcock, the architect best known for his Malaysian “Factory in the Forest” project. 

An open-air living room teeming with built-in green spaces occupies the home’s heart, showcasing Bulcock’s signature sustainable design ethic. The latter is also evident in the home’s strong, polished exterior that maximizes the concept of indoor/outdoor living via its open-air geometry, generous skylights, outdoor passageways and green roof.

The Corbusier-inspired tropical home feels chiseled and masculine, featuring brick and exposed-concrete walls complemented by mid-century-styled warm wood doors, windows and louvered partitions. Leafy seafront surroundings enclose the stylized rectilinear home, softening its strong surfaces.

The structure was built to occupy a coastal berm and to feel partially submerged, with an open-plan layout featuring the living room as the home’s anchor. The central, open-air gathering space extends outdoors as a covered living area, adjacent to the property’s long pool, with views out to the Indian Ocean only a few sloping steps away.

The three-bedroom residence’s sleeping quarters are brightened by tall windows and feature indoor/outdoor en-suite bathrooms. The open-sided living area also offers a sizeable teak dining table at its center, and meals are either prepared in the kitchen or created by the onsite staff that resides in a separate structure on the property.

Plants are an integral part of the home’s design, growing within and throughout the structure itself. Built-in raised beds, site-specific planters and landscaped pathways create an experience of truly living outdoors, though entirely under cover, adding to the home’s modernist charm.

Bulcock’s design vision was to preserve the land surrounding the home and retain and integrate the site’s natural slope, landscape contours and trees in order to maximize the home’s contact with nature. The house is designed on a single plane, with all its living spaces organized under one roof, much of it planted with turf and tropical ground cover. The living roof features a bridge-like terrace, and viewed from above, the home blends seamlessly into its tropical, oceanfront landscape despite its bold, mid-century inspired, geometric form.

AROUND

Located at the southeast end of Sri Lanka, Tangalle is fringed with palm groves and lined with mangrove lagoons along the wave-tossed coast of the Indian Ocean. The town offers all the necessary services, yet villa for rent in Sri Lanka feels blissfully secluded, tucked into an oceanfront slope steps away from a wide swath of sand that serves as a near-private beach. The home’s extra-large pool is set under swaying coconut palms, and the region’s sand is golden-to-white, extending undisturbed for miles in each direction.

Originally a fishing village, Tangalle is undergoing reconstruction and revitalization following the 2004 tsunami, yet remains peaceful and slightly off the beaten path, a place of family operated cafes, restaurants, and beachfront bars, a small bay with a reef, and warm, Jacuzzi like waters. 

A nearby beach is a turtle habitat, where you can witness turtles hatching by starlight or head for the Mulkirigala temples nearby, a series of terraced caves accessible by 500 stone steps featuring 18th-century paintings and numerous religious sculptures.

LOCATION

Dalawella, near Tangalle, Unawatuna, Southern Province, Sri Lanka. Nearest airport: Colombo (165km).

BEST TIME TO VISIT: November to April