National Design Hub Part 2 Project 2014 Gayan Karunarathne City School of Architecture | Sri Lanka "REVIVING CULTURE THROUGH REFINING TRADITIONAL ARTS AND CRAFTS"The National Design Hub is an integrated platform to promote creative design in Sri Lanka. Its main mission is to Upgrade original creativity of Sri Lankan designers, promote international design exchangers, and upgrade market competiveness of Sri Lankan traditional industries, help enterprises build up their own brand, raise value addition for the traditional industries, and announce to the world that the era of “Sri Lank design” has arisen.Sri Lanka is a country rich with varied heritage of traditional arts and craft. Colourful crafts are made of natural indigenous raw materials by craftsman and women whose skills are passed on from generations to generation. Over the centuries, little has changed in the design and execution of these crafts. A contemporary approach in design, hand in hand with technology and craftsmanship has become a necessity for the survival of the traditional crafts. The national design hub serves to bridge this gap between tradition and innovation and to develop creative design oriented industries to serve future needs of the Sri Lankan Society. One of the most distinctive features of the creative industries is that they are more innovation intensive than other parts of the economy. Constant innovation of products, processes and business methods is the norm rather than the exception. In many countries around the world there is a growing interest in the extent to which this innovation mind-set spills over into the rest of the economy, making the creative industries truly catalysts for wider and more fundamental change. The building will act as a fusion of traditional idea for innovative design contextually responding to the cultural crescent while amplifying the character of the node and depict the future for innovative design implementation. The project will serve as a forum for people to realize creative potentials among the cultural buzz, as it acts as a public interface. Gayan Karunarathne Tutor(s) Samanthika Piyasena Tamara Wjayapala