Abstract:
Healthy music training depends partly on whether the physical environment supports
listening, instrumental practice, floor-based learning and sustained occupation. This
paper examines the facilities used by the Department of Music and the Department
of Instrumental Music at the Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan Faculty of Visual and
Performing Arts, University of Jaffna. A focused architectural case-study method was
used. Evidence was collected through a site visit on 20 July 2026, measured drawing,
room-use mapping, departmental enrolment records and guided key-informant
interviews with the heads of the two departments. The material was organised under
four analytical categories: teaching-group demand, functional overlap, environmental
conditions and timetable consequences. The findings indicate that spatial demand is
shaped less by total enrolment than by the number and type of teaching groups that
must operate concurrently. In the Department of Instrumental Music, rooms used for
violin, veena and mridangam teaching also serve as offices or storage, while a student
community room is used for theory classes. The circular classrooms are acoustically
inappropriate for music teaching. Instrumental testing was outside the scope of the
study and is required to quantify, not establish, the acoustic problem. Unpaved access
and rain-exposed thresholds are incompatible with teaching in which students and
instruments are positioned at floor level. Limited room availability also contributes to
timetable fragmentation and Saturday teaching. The paper interprets these conditions as
functional compression and spatially produced time pressure. It concludes that healthy
and sustainable training requires immediate improvements to access, drainage and room
allocation, followed by targeted acoustic and thermal assessment. Longer-term planning
should be based on concurrent pedagogical groups and instrument-specific activities
rather than general classroom counts.
