This year, the Sri Lanka Design Festival (SLDF) turns the capital into a living, breathing design museum. Under the banner “Discover Your Colombo,” fifteen immersive experiences invite locals and visitors alike to see the city anew; through the eyes of artists, architects, typographers, and storytellers. From tiled corridors beneath our feet to skyline perspectives from the Lotus Tower, SLDF 2025 celebrates design not as something confined to galleries, but as the very fabric of urban life.
Dutch Hospital
Underfoot: Colombo’s Hidden Design Secrets
The festival begins quite literally from the ground up. Underfoot, a tactile exploration curated by documentary photographer Kesara Ratnavibhushana and design studio ILOT, traces the unseen artistry beneath Colombo’s streets. Beginning at the Old Dutch Hospital, Kesara unveils the colonial craftsmanship that shaped the city’s early identity, before the journey moves to the Grand Oriental Hotel (GOH), where ILOT reveals the material science and exquisite geometry behind its storied floor. A walking tour down Chatham Street follows, where the city’s past glimmers through cracked tiles and fading mosaics, echoes of design once walked upon daily. The experience culminates at The Radicle Gallery, where participants try their hand at creating their own tiles under ILOT’s guidance. As shoes click against patterned floors and lenses capture reflections of history, Colombo’s underfoot story becomes one of rediscovery.
Grand Oriental Hotel
Sapumal Foundation
Sapumal Foundation
At the Sapumal Foundation, the spirit of rebellion hangs in the air. Once the residence of Harry Pieris, secretary of the avant-garde ‘43 Group, this intimate experience invites visitors to step into Sri Lanka’s modernist awakening. Surrounded by works of George Keyt, Justin Daraniyagala, and Ivan Peries, one feels the pulse of a nation in artistic revolt. The Foundation becomes both museum and sanctuary; a place where brushstrokes once defied empire and reimagined identity. Here, design isn’t just visual, it’s political, emotional, and timeless.
Every city has its icon; for contemporary Colombo, it is Cinnamon Life. This immersive talk and walk pairs the sharp lens of Kesara Ratnavibhushana with the visionary mind of architect James Balmond. From Kesara’s archive of construction photography to Balmond’s design philosophy, participants uncover the anatomy of a megastructure that reshaped Colombo’s skyline. A guided photo tour through Slave Island and Nawam Mawatha follows, inviting participants to frame the city through light, shadow, and reflection; a visual dialogue between old streets and new ambitions.
Cinnamon Life
Public Architecture in the City
Led by architect and sustainability expert Susil Lamahewa, this guided tour through Colombo 7 traces the evolution of civic space, from colonial grandeur to post-independence pride. Starting at the Mayor’s House and the elegant Public Library, participants learn how civic architecture mirrored the island’s journey toward self-definition. The walk through Viharamahadevi Park and Independence Square becomes a meditation on freedom and form, how a city breathes, remembers, and renews itself. Lamahewa’s commentary brings each façade to life, transforming Colombo’s skyline into a study in belonging.
Public Library, Colombo
Independence Square
Colombo Open Home Tour: Behind the Gate
Few experiences are as intimate as stepping into someone’s home, especially when those homes belong to the city’s creative pioneers. The Colombo Open Home Tour, led by collector and design thinker Lahiru Pathmalal, opens three extraordinary doors. At Maniumpathy, a 1906 colonial manor turned boutique hotel, heritage and hospitality coexist in tranquil courtyards. Lahiru’s own residence at Torrington Court unfolds as an ode to Art Deco and contemporary art, while the studio-home of architect Ismeth Rahim bridges the legacies of Bawa and modern Sri Lankan design. Behind each gate lies a different interpretation of beauty, craft, and memory.
Maniumpathy
Colombo Design Ride
What better way to rediscover a city than on two wheels? The Colombo Design Ride, led by Yasas Hewage, turns the capital into an open-air design museum. Cyclists trace a creative route from Cinnamon Life to Old Colombo, pausing at murals, façades, and public installations that reveal how design informs movement and meaning. Inspired by design weeks in Copenhagen and Amsterdam, the ride transforms cycling into an act of observation, proof that in Colombo, creativity is everywhere, if you’re willing to look.
Letters and Identity: Colombo Type Walk + Typography Forum
Typography shapes how we see a city, its signs, streets, and soul. Curated by Pathum Egodawatta and Akuru Collective, Letters and Identity, explores the evolving language of Sri Lanka’s design. A forum first, then a walk, the experience dives into how scripts, Sinhala, Tamil, and English, can coexist in a single visual system. The collaboration with the Urban Development Authority unveils a new trilingual typeface for national signage, while the city walks through Pettah and Slave Island traces fading hand-painted shopfronts and modern wayfinding. Joined by Indian designers, this forum becomes a conversation on South Asia’s shared aesthetic future, letters as bridges between memory and modernity.
Experience the Legacy: A Bawa Residencies Journey
No exploration of Colombo’s design story is complete without Geoffrey Bawa. In this exquisite homage, guests travel in vintage Mercedes-Benz cars, Bawa’s vehicle of choice, between his most private spaces. Beginning at Bawa Space, archival sketches reveal the birth of Tropical Modernism: a philosophy rooted in proportion, material, and landscape. At private residences and finally the Jetwing Ratnam Residence, guests sip gin and tonic amid spatial poetry, listening to Hiran Cooray reflect on being Bawa’s client. The afternoon is not just a tour, it’s communion with the master who shaped the island’s architectural soul.
Jetwing Ratnam Residence
Colombo Sculpture Trail: Design, Memory and Form
The festival closes with the Colombo Sculpture Trail, a poetic walk through the city’s monuments and modern installations. From Ranjith Dissanayake’s recycled-metal elephant at Gangaramaya to the solemn grace of the Cenotaph War Memorial, each sculpture speaks of history, faith, and transformation. The journey ends at Cinnamon Life, where contemporary works blur the boundary between building and art. Light, shadow, and texture become sculpture themselves, as the city’s evolving aesthetic stands revealed in steel, stone, and spirit.
Cenotaph War Memorial
Colombo’s Theatre and Film Hubs
With Professor Asoka de Zoysa, the stage lights of early 20th-century Colombo flicker back to life. Beginning at Elphinstone Theatre and Tower Hall, the heritage walk resurrects the Nurthi plays and travelling troupes that shaped the city’s cultural identity. A puppet installation at Maradana Railway Station reimagines the musical Sri Wickrama Rajasinha, and ginger tea served from tiffin tins recalls the warmth of the “Roaring Twenties.” Through melody and memory, Colombo’s entertainment quarter becomes a time capsule of art, class, and performance.
Elphinstone Theatre
Streets of Colombo: A Citizen’s Photo Walk
SLDF’s ‘Citizens of Colombo’ experience invites participants to document the human pulse of the city. Beginning in Slave Island, photographers explore how light, gesture, and architecture converge in everyday stories. A review session and post-production workshop at Cinnamon Life refine those images into visual essays. It’s a masterclass in seeing; less about perfect frames, more about empathy, narrative, and the quiet poetry of the urban ordinary.
Colombo Rising: A City in the Making
Colombo Port City, born from the sea, is perhaps the most literal expression of Sri Lanka’s new design frontier. In Colombo Rising, participants explore the masterplan of this reclaimed metropolis with the planners shaping its skyline. From smart infrastructure to public space, it’s a glimpse into the city of tomorrow. The journey flows naturally into an evening sail with Sail Lanka, where guests watch the coastline shimmer in the sunset, reflecting on what it means to design a city from nothing but ocean and imagination.
Reconnecting with Colombo: Nature, Quiet, and Creativity
Amid the noise of progress, Reconnecting with Colombo offers stillness. Led by naturalist Prabath Samarasooriya at Diyasaru Uyana, this early-morning walk reveals the ecological heartbeat of the city. Birdsong replaces traffic; sketchbooks capture inspiration drawn from wetlands and water lilies. The experience reminds participants that design need not always be urban; it can also be found in the patterns of wings, ripples, and roots that keep Colombo alive.
Colombo Art Trail: Across Galleries
If SLDF has a soul, it lies in the Colombo Art Trail. A moving gallery across the city, the trail links white-cube galleries, independent studios, and murals in a conversation between rebellion and renewal. Visitors drift from the polished minimalism of contemporary spaces to graffiti-splashed alleyways, meeting artists whose works echo the island’s shifting identity. The trail reveals a city constantly in dialogue with itself, abstract yet grounded, traditional yet provocative.
Our Colombo: A Bird’s-Eye Conversation at Lotus Tower
From the summit of the Lotus Tower, Colombo unfolds in rhythm and geometry. In this intimate conversation, Kesara Ratnavibhushana invites audiences to view the city from above, where contrasts between old and new blur into one coherent narrative. The discussion explores how design frames memory, how architecture signals change, and how a skyline can tell a nation’s story. The Lotus Tower becomes both metaphor and mirror, an elevated reminder of Colombo’s endless reinvention.
Lotus Tower
Underfoot: Colombo’s Hidden Design Secrets
The festival begins quite literally from the ground up. Underfoot, a tactile exploration curated by documentary photographer Kesara Ratnavibhushana and design studio ILOT, traces the unseen artistry beneath Colombo’s streets. Beginning at the Old Dutch Hospital, Kesara unveils the colonial craftsmanship that shaped the city’s early identity, before the journey moves to the Grand Oriental Hotel (GOH), where ILOT reveals the material science and exquisite geometry behind its storied floor. A walking tour down Chatham Street follows, where the city’s past glimmers through cracked tiles
