Our building design
Architectural Research and Publications
Our architectural research disseminates some of the rich and varied forms of tacit knowledge that provide a valuable contribution for international professional designers, who interact with local communities on the ground in the unique situations which form part of the global picture of the Climate Crisis.
Monsoon Assemblages publication: Monsoon [+other] Grounds.
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Our architectural research with the Rajapur communities (in Bangladesh) has been disseminated in a paper written by our co-founder Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows and published in the Monsoon Assemblages research publication.
Architectural responses to the changing monsoon;
making, sharing and communicating design processes
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The animation represents the design process of the Rajapur Centre in Bangladesh.
The research findings through several participatory activities and illustrates the response to the annual climatic cycles experienced at the site. For example, during the wet season the land becomes submerged by water, it entices various types of micro-organisms such as fish (to inhabit the water) and birds such as Kingfishers also occupy the water and the site. It was revealed through the community’s ethnographic storytelling of the site that there is a relationship and connection between the seasonally shifting landscape, the moving water, the migrating kingfisher, and the fish. This illustrates the seasonal cycle of each as intertwined with the climate, the landscape and each other.
Utilising collectiveness, co-design and end-user participation to tackle climate change could transform the practice of architecture and benefit both the designer and the user.
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Architectural responses to the extreme draught
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The Rajapur community expressed their loss in the rice farming due to the draught and the fields had dried up and cracked before the rain arrived. This has affected the farming of other food crops as well as rice.
To address the issue of irrigating the vegetable patches for the households, during out community workshops the participants, improvised a design and made a device (an architectural intervention), inventing a collective design solution within these workshops. This consists of a frame made out of bamboo (sourced from the bamboo gardens in the Rajapur village), that encloses a thin mesh that captures droplets from the high humidity in the air at certain times of the day (e.g. when temperature decreases below dew point usually at sunrise). It is very easy to construct, to transport to various sites and has easy maintenance. It is able to collect water from the humid air which is then used for irrigating the crops and assist in growing food in extreme climate. This goes some way to help the most vulnerable to become self-sufficient and resilient to poverty and calamities caused by changing climate. The design of this prototype was shared, demonstrated and disseminated for others to construct their own version at home.
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