ARCH-4980.2 | Jeremy Carvalho, Adjunct Professor

SOCIAL INTEGRATION WITH INTERCONNECTIONS

PIANKA PAUL

The topography of Bangladesh is basically low-lying, flat alluvial land with an extensive network of rivers and channels. The total land area is 147, 570 sq km where 80% is flatland, and 20% land is 1 meter or less above sea level. Its geographical location makes it prone to heavy rains, floods, and high intensity storms which cause immense loss of life and property almost every year. On top, the snow melt from Himalayas causing the sea water rise and making the extreme Floods more destructive in this deltaic country. The monsoon climate is definitely one of the reasons behind flooding; it brings lush green landscape all year round with rain-bearing winds, warm temperatures and humidity.  Flooding also makes the land very fertile. Therefore, agriculture is the single largest producing sector of the economy for this poor country.

Because of these natural disasters and seeking for better economic opportunities, many villagers have abandoned agricultural work and forced to move nearby cities, which increases the population density as well as the growth rate of slums or unplanned informal settlements of those areas. As population increases in the cities, problems of sanitation, air and water quality, energy consumption, and need of housing also increases. To reduce this load, areas near the cities are getting introduced with urbanization, which effecting the agricultural lands.

Therefore, my design proposes a continuous woven structure along the river side’s, where there is an integration of agricultural with housing and infrastructure. This continuous structure creates a landscape, where it works as an open public spaces, agricultural fields and sometimes become the roof top of a building. Through layering, it links different functions throughout the site. To control the flood and rain water, the drainage system directs the water flow from river and other areas to linked wetlands for collection and purification. As part of the program, bio-gas hills with open plazas at the top are used for energy production, different height of fields are used for agriculture growth, creating social integration by mixing residential apartments for middle and upper class citizen and settlement housing for poor farmers.