International calendar features Sampath branch

S a mpath Bank was f e a - tured in an international calendar for the year 2012. The Bank’s Super Branch, located at No.103, Dhar mapala Mawatha was featured in the ALUCOBOND® Asia Pacific Calendar for 2012 along with eleven other landmarks from across the world.

Fe a t u r i n g a n a r r ay o f b u i l d i n g s f r o m Au s t r a l i a to Austria including many Asian, Asia-pacific, Middle Eastern, and European countries, the calendar highlights the best and trendiest among the many buildings utilizing ALUCOBOND® around the world.

Arjen Flierman, ALUCOBOND®’S Architectural Solutions Director for the Asia Pacific said, “The Sampath Bank building was the clear winner when I was selecting a building utilizing ALUCOBOND sheets under the cor porate identity sector this year. The building had a clear design with an extremely attractive colour scheme that perfectly incorporated feng-shui principles, making it appear to be very wel c o ming a n d ap p e a l i n g to its consumers. It had the key element of being distinctive and conveying a brand’s trademark and identity at the very first instant which is what we look for under the cor porate identity se gment.” He added, “We want t h e b e s t bu i l d i n g s i n t h e Asia Pacific re gion for our calendar that really capture ALUCOBOND’S convenience, beauty and ele gance and this building was the ideal choice.”

S a mpath Bank c o mmissioned Suchith Mohotti Associates Private Limited, one of Colombo’s oldest and reco gnized architectural companies to design and construct the building. Sumedha Wijekoon, Chief Architect on the project attempted to convey the Bank’s 25 year heritage of being a custome r- o r i e n t e d b a n k f r o m a design perspective. “One of t he re al ly f as c i nati ng e l e - ments of the building is how it’s opened up in the front to ensure appeal and attraction t o al l i t s c onsumers r i ght from the start.

The Bank was keen on making sure that several of their key organization philosophies were highlighted through this building and we’ve done this in several ways.

The glass front opens the interior of the bank to the outside in an unusual way, enabling customers to see everything that’s going on within the bank. This is to create a sense of transparency at a very basic level.”

Speaking about the Bank’s decision to depart from its more conventional buildings, Hemantha Marasinghe, the Bank’s Senior Manager of Engineering Services stated as follows, “We believe that t he d i f f e r e nt i at i o n i n t he banking industry isn’t really in the products they offer but in the service. And during its 25 year history, Sampath has always stuck to its credosomeone to take care of - ensuring that our customers g et the best of everything possible. And this open conce pt takes the Bank’s customer service to an entirely new level where we’ve tried to literally open up the bank in a unique way to all our customers.”