The Great Passageway

How does architecture become a patient negotiator in lands fractured by conflict, not between humans, but between humans and elephants?

In the Minneriya region, generations of “bad habits” have formed: roads slicing through migration paths, villages that encroach on wild territory, and a cycle of fear that repeats with every broken fence and raided field.

Architecture here does not arrive with force or finality. Instead, it listens. It adapts. It allows time to work. The interventions across five key sites introduce forms that shift with the seasons, change with their users, and slowly guide both species toward better habits. A bridge becomes a seasonal offering, a tower becomes a non-intrusive observatory, and village homes take on new forms that protect without harming.

These structures are not permanent. They are designed to disappear, to erode, be reclaimed, or repurposed once their role is fulfilled. Inspired by natural systems and sacred geometries, architecture is treated as a living organism: born with purpose, and humble enough to leave when that purpose is served.

This is not architecture for dominance or defense
This is architecture as a mediator
As a patient negotiator
As a living organism
Not to fix the land
But to grow with it
And when the time comes
To let it go...