Dr. K. Locana Gunaratna MCP ’73 recently completed the Accident and Emergency Hospital in Batticaloa, the capital city of the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka. The project is a Public Private Partnership between the Government of Sri Lanka and a non-profit foundation supporting a National Trauma Service in Sri Lanka based in Australia. This Accident and Emergency Hospital is located within the Teaching Hospital campus. Parts of the province frequently experience cyclonic conditions and floods. It was also severely damaged by the 2004 Tsunami and the recently concluded civil war.

The project is a specialized facility meant for patients who have sustained injuries through serious accidents and is capable of dealing with mass traumas. It provides for emergencies through its high-tech diagnostic and treatment facilities. These include ultra-sterile operating theaters with recovery areas, and, short-stay wards for men and women. Patients after emergency treatment can be transferred, if need be, to other appropriate wards of the Teaching Hospital Complex. The project won a ‘Gold’ award from the Green Building Council of Sri Lanka, a body affiliated to the World Green Building Council. It is the first hospital in this country to win such an award.

Gunaratna and his firm, Gunaratna Associates, which is based in Colombo, are committed to Green building.

Additionally, Gunaratna recently published a book, Towards Equitable Progress, a collection of essays presented from the perspective of a spatial planner whose working life has been immersed in South Asia. It concerns some of the serious challenges that need to be confronted in the South Asian context, including the externalities and ethical questions that arise in the process of development.