In Bangladesh, a country crisscrossed by endless rivers, people use bodies of water like they use the land. Waterways are sometimes as popular as roads, boats are public spaces and riverbanks are places to socialize and gather. Across the country, land near the rivers remains in constant transformation, appearing whenever the water recedes and disappearing when it overflows. Often, the same land is used for agriculture in winter and fishing during the monsoon.
A major part of the country lies in the Ganges Delta — the world’s largest — formed by three rivers coming out of the Himalayas: the Meghna, Brahmaputra and Ganges. Architects knew how to navigate this landscape long before Bangladesh started experiencing the effects of climate change. They have always built in ways that are suited for warm and wet climates, using natural ventilation and materials like brick and bamboo. Today, a new generation of architects is literally building on such long-standing techniques and know-how from across the region.
In Sunamganj, near Bangladesh’s northern border with India, a vast piece of land stretches into the distance. On winter days, it resembles a huge and empty lake. Cows graze on the slopes, children play in the open spaces. People walk or drive their motorbikes on improvised roads and paths leading to the nearby village. “Every year during the monsoon, the water comes up to here,” said Rakiba Begum, pointing to her waist. She stood outside her house, right on the edge of the dry land. There was a small garden in front and a path leading down to the nearby river at the back. “Sometimes when it floods, we live on boats for several months. The entire village goes underwater,” she added.
A little while ago, she erected something new in her garden called a “khudi bari” (small house), designed by the award-winning architect Marina Tabassum for families to move into during the floods. Tabassum’s structures have steep sloped roofs, rest on high stilts and are built with locally sourced materials like bamboo and corrugated steel. They are easily assembled and disassembled and can be moved to safe locations during the monsoon. “It is like a piece of furniture. When you move, you take your house with you,” said Tabassum, sitting at her office in the Dhanmondi neighborhood in Dhaka. “You have a responsibility when you build something. The moment you do, it has an impact on its surroundings. So you must sustain both the project and the place where it was built.”
A recipient of several awards, including the prestigious Soane Medal, which recognizes “the central importance of architecture in people’s lives,” Tabassum was featured among Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2024 for prioritizing “local cultures and values, as well as the perils faced by our shared planet.” Her work ranges from Dhaka’s Museum of Independence (designed together with the architect Kashef Chowdhury) to the minimalist Bait Ur Rouf Jame Mosque on the outskirts of the capital, built on land donated by her grandmother and designed to let in lots of light with no excess decor — a representation of “the essence of Islam devoid of ritualistic and symbolic attributes.”
Outside her office, the city never stops moving. Dhaka, one of the world’s megacities, has over 20 million inhabitants. Tabassum calls it “unlivable to the point of unlivable.” Home to over 170 million people, Bangladesh ranks eighth in the world in total population and is more densely populated than any other country, with the exception of islands and city-states. Building better — in close collaboration with people, more in tune with how rural communities live and respecting nature — is part of facing this reality.
“When we build outside Dhaka, we can set a certain kind of example. People have the idea that you should follow Dhaka, that 10-story towers are the symbol of progress,” Tabassum said. “We need to find ways to remain very natural and at the same time have all the facilities. As architects, we can show such solutions.” In recent years, several of these have earned international acclaim. Two years ago, the triennial Aga Khan Award for Architecture, which honors projects that “set new standards of excellence in architecture, planning practices, historic preservation and landscape architecture,” went to a group in the town of Jhenaidah, a few hours’ drive from Dhaka.
New Lines visited the town early one afternoon, set amid sprawling rice fields and abundant greenery, with amra trees growing side by side and tall palms bearing betel nuts and dates. Alamgir and Selina Kabir, a couple living on the outskirts of town, were in the middle of work on a building project in their family garden. They were just done with the rectangular foundation, made from packed gray mud, for what will become a community center. “We are building it together. These blocks here, I rammed most of them myself,” Selina said. Alamgir, her husband, walked around to the far end of the foundation and pointed to what would become a tiny opening near the floor. “We want the building to have a secret door for children. It will be so small that only kids can get through,” he said. In another corner of the garden was a fish tank with stairs (again, so that children can access it) and a round outdoor kitchen with open walls. Selina called it her watchtower, a place “where I can cook and see what is happening around me.”
The couple, who are both primary school teachers, are part of a diverse group of people in Jhenaidah working on collaborative architectural projects, ranging from small interventions in public spaces to “co-creation” centered on people’s ideas and engagement. Besides teachers like themselves, there are students, business owners, rickshaw drivers and others. Two architects, Hasibul Kabir and his wife Suhailey Farzana, are behind much of the work, from creating spaces for people to meet to joining the process of building and constructing. “We are just two architects living here and participating in people’s projects. Whatever we do comes from everyone. In fact, we consider everyone working together here as an architect,” Hasibul said.
The Aga Khan Award for Architecture, when given to the group, highlighted its work to restore and revive a riverbank in central Jhenaidah. Using terracotta-colored bricks, the group designed and built public walkways and places to sit and gather. “It all started with mapping and talking to people about their dreams. One common dream people had was to be able to face the river, something we couldn’t do before [due to lack of accessibility],” Hasibul said. The riverbank now transforms into a much-used public space during evenings, weekends and holidays.
The choice to use bricks came naturally. In a delta like Bangladesh, where stone is not available, mud has taken center stage throughout history. Tabassum, who often uses brick, calls it her country’s “own material.” “Brick has a beautiful, graceful way of aging. And aging is important in architecture,” she said in her Soane Medal lecture.
In a region where land and water have always been in constant flux, anything permanent — terracotta and bricks — would signal steadfastness and power. The remains of what were once impressive temples, monasteries and mosques built in brick can be found across Bangladesh today. In Bagerhat, in the south, a UNESCO World Heritage Site includes 360 mosques, mausoleums, bridges, roads, water tanks and other buildings constructed from baked brick, once hidden by the surrounding jungle. In Dinajpur, in the northwest, the magnificent Hindu Kantajew temple built in the 19th century is covered in elaborate terracotta figures that detail scenes from everyday life at the time.
For anyone building in Bangladesh, climate change is an inescapable reality. In Satkhira, a coastal region severely affected by climate change, the architect Kashef Chowdhury designed a hospital built entirely of brick, with a soft minimalist design that blends with the surroundings. When approaching it via narrow countryside roads, the hospital building seems part of the coastal landscape, where paddy fields and pathways shift in green and sandy colors. The facade changes color depending on the hour of the day, from cold brown in the morning to balmy orange in the late afternoon. Large, glassless windows blur the border between indoors and outdoors. A lightning-shaped canal runs right through the middle of the complex, collecting rainwater and creating a microclimate to help cool the space during the hottest months. Patients and their families can sit by the small canal or take the stairs up to a prayer room with open walls, used by all faiths.
In 2021, the Satkhira Hospital won the prestigious RIBA International Prize, the highest award presented by the Royal Institute of British Architects. Calling it “very relevant to critical global challenges” and “a celebration of a building dedicated to humans,” the judges appreciated how the low-cost building was designed to work with and withstand the tangible effects of rising seawater in the surrounding area. “The brick is treated to not be destroyed by the salty water. And ventilation flows in a way so that we don’t feel the worst summer heat,” said Mozahedul Hoque, director of the hospital.
Next to the hospital, on a small paddy field, two men wearing colorful lungi loincloths tied around their waists were harvesting rice with their legs knee-deep in water. This had been a common scene in Satkhira, before climate change began to push salt water inland, making much of the land unfit for rice farming. Rice fields have now given way to muddy ponds filled with shrimp, which require an intensive form of export-oriented aquaculture that is said to yield short-term economic benefits but has also led to the destruction of vast areas of mangrove forests and exacerbated soil salinization. “We treat many people with hypertension, kidney disease and skin conditions because of the salinity in the soil and water,” Hoque said.
Tropical storms have also always been part of life in Bangladesh, due to the country’s low-lying topography and its location at the triangular head of the Bay of Bengal. With its warm surface temperatures and shallow waters, the bay is a favorable breeding ground for cyclones. Two of the mightiest cyclones to strike Asia in recent years, Sidr in 2007 and Aila in 2009, hit Satkhira particularly hard. Thousands were killed across Bangladesh, particularly during Sidr, and millions were left homeless. “This area was totally destroyed during Sidr and Aila,” Hoque said.
Elsewhere in the country, individuals are building similar, locally grounded projects. Neaz Rahman, an urban planner and author, decided to use only traditional methods and materials when building a new family home in rural Faridpur, a district halfway between Dhaka and Jhenaidah. He was trained as an architect but says that he “tried to forget all of that” while designing the house.
It was early afternoon and he was walking around the large veranda stretching from one end of his house to the other. The space is larger than the house itself and opens up to the green surroundings. “I built the veranda based on memories from being a kid and running around and playing in the courtyard of my grandparents’ house,” he said. “I think the only way to truly build things is to use memories. As humans, we are made of memories and history. Before you create something, you have to understand who you are.”
Rahman knew from the start that he would not install air conditioning in the house. Instead, he designed it in a way that facilitates natural airflow. “I studied traditional ventilation to understand how people managed heat and humidity before so-called modern technology,” he said. The design is laid out so that the rooms stay in the shade all day. He also avoided installing big windows. Glass, he said, is a bad solution for Bangladesh’s climate, since it traps the heat inside. “We have messed up big time with all the glass. Like installing sliding windows that cannot open. This works well in cold countries but not here.”
He then showed the brick walls, which have been made in such a way that the house stays porous, again to facilitate the flow of air. Porosity is a feature of traditional Bengali architecture. In her projects, Tabassum uses the same technique. “When working with bricks, we make them semi-transparent to give them lightness. When using jute or bamboo, we layer them to give them hardness,” she said.
After her first “khudi bari” project was finalized, she used similar modules to construct larger structures in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar in eastern Bangladesh, where nearly 1 million people from the Rohingya community have been living since being pushed out of Myanmar in 2017. These camps, made up of more than 30 sites, form the largest refugee settlement in the world.
In 2022, the same year that the project in Jhenaidah was awarded, a group of young architects received the same Aga Khan Award for Architecture for work done in the refugee camps. Together with Rohingya craftspeople, they used materials like water reeds, nipa palm leaves and bamboo sticks to build women-friendly spaces and a cultural memory center to preserve Rohingya identity. “We are excited that it was recognized. These projects might not look architectural at first, but they are real architectural interventions that people need. They are the brainchild of the people that are using them,” said Khwaja Fatmi, one of the architects who worked on the project.
She sat together with Rizvi Hassan, another architect from the group, at a cafe near Dhaka’s Shilpakala Academy, where the 6th Dhaka Art Summit was being held. One of the installations featured replicas of structures built in Cox’s Bazar and other related objects: embroidered maps of neighborhoods in the camps, tiny boats made to look like traditional Rohingya vessels, miniature houses that symbolically lack roofs and walls.
The real-life structures in the refugee settlements were built on one premise: that they should be temporary. Nothing permanent is allowed inside the camps. “We worked with light and nonpermanent material, things that already exist in the place. These materials are usually not appreciated, but it was interesting for us to face these limitations,” Hassan said.
When he first arrived at the camps, over five years ago, the idea of recruiting architects was new. But once everyone realized that their work was about more than buildings, people came to appreciate it. “It shifted when people saw that architecture is also about mental health and equal rights,” Fatmi said. “And other architects have changed their views about our profession. They now see that there are other things than going into an architecture firm.”
Bangladesh is not alone in needing to build more sustainably. The construction sector is by far the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, contributing 37% of global emissions. The production and use of building materials such as cement, steel and aluminum have a significant carbon footprint. Architects can change this. For instance, the Burkinabe architect Francis Kere has worked extensively with mud and natural techniques. A school built in the village where he grew up shares many features with the structures in Cox’s Bazar: small courtyards, open ceilings, semi-indoor vegetation. Recently, he built a pavilion in London that collects rainwater to show that “even a wealthy and rich country should save energy and resources.”
In Burkina Faso and Senegal, architects are using compressed earth bricks to cool down cities without air conditioning. In Canada, the architect Michael Green has argued for locally sourced wood to be used to construct tall buildings. In Pakistan, the architect Yasmeen Lari made a case for “barefoot social architecture,” a carbon-neutral approach to housing that emphasizes co-creation and the use of sustainable materials like bamboo, lime and mud. In China, cities are creating “spongy” infrastructure with ancient draining technology to manage floods and heavy rains.
“I think something that others can learn from Bangladesh is how our practice is grounded in our surroundings. Our solutions come from what happens around us,” said Fatmi. “The world can look more at how rural communities use local materials and live their lives without wasting.”
In Faridpur, Rahman looked out over his garden from the veranda. Like all traditional Bengali rural homes, it has a pond filled with water. When digging the pond, he said, he realized the importance of local knowledge. “A man working with me said, ‘Don’t dig deeper than 8 feet.’ But I wanted to do it the way I had researched, so I didn’t listen to him. It was a disaster. Once we got deeper, the soil was very bad. It had been a sandy riverbank long ago, something only the local community would know.”
He sat down at the far end of the porch, where a table had been set for a late lunch. Plates with fish and rice came out from the kitchen; family members arrived one by one. “This is how we live here, outdoors. We don’t call our rooms ‘living rooms’ because we don’t live in them. We only go there to sleep. This is how we need to build our houses,” he said.
This article was published in the Spring 2025 issue of New Lines‘ print edition.
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