KarunaNews Story

Architects in densely populated Bangladesh have always built in ways suited for warm and wet climates, using natural ventilation and materials like brick and bamboo. In Sunamganj, where the village goes underwater during the monsoon, Marina Tabassum designed a movable small house for families to move into during the floods. Two years ago, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture went to a group in Jhenaidah, where people restored and turned a riverbank into a much-used public space. In coastal Satkhira, Kashef Chowdhury designed a low cost hospital built of brick designed to withstand rising seawater that in 2021 won the prestigious RIBA International Prize. In 2022, young architects received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for work in the refugee camps with Rohingya craftspeople, using materials like water reeds, nipa palm leaves and bamboo sticks to build women-friendly spaces and a cultural memory center.