Friendship Centre Gaibandha building, Bangladesh community architecture design images, Architect news

Friendship Centre, Gaibandha Building, Bangladesh

Rural Architecture in Bangladesh: Award Winner News design by Kashef Chowdhury / URBANA Architects

3 Oct 2016

Location: Gaibandha, Bangladesh

Photos: AKTC / Rajesh Vora

A community centre which makes a virtue of an area susceptible to flooding in rural Bangladesh.

Architect: Kashef Chowdhury / URBANA

Friendship Centre, Gaibandha, Bangladesh

Abu Dhabi, UAE, 3rd of October 2016 – The winners of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture were announced today in a ceremony in Abu Dhabi.

One of the 6 winning projects:

Friendship Centre, Gaibandha

A rural training centre inspired by one of the country’s oldest urban archaeological sites.

The Centre was created to train staff of an NGO working with people inhabiting nearby chars, or riverine islands.

Offices, a library, meeting rooms, and prayer and tea rooms are included in pavilion-like buildings surrounded by courts and pools.

The Centre is also rented out for meetings, training, and conferences for income generation.

The local hand-made brick construction has been inspired by the monastic aesthetic of the 3rd century BC ruins of Mahasthangahr, the earliest urban archaeological site yet found in Bangladesh.

Structural elements are of reinforced concrete and finishes also include timber and stone. The naturally ventilated structures have green roofs.

The Centre is located in an agricultural area susceptible to flooding and earthquakes, and whose low-bearing soil has a low bearing capacity. As a result, an embankment has been constructed with a water run-off pumping facility.

Constructed and finished primarily of one material – local hand-made bricks – the spaces are woven out of pavilions, courtyards, pools and greens, corridors and shadows.

The Friendship Centre is divided into two sections, the outer Ka block for the offices, library and training classrooms and the inner Kha block for the residential section. At a time, 80 people can be trained here in four separate classrooms. Simplicity is the intent, monastic is the feel.

Award Cycle: 2014-2016 Cycle
Status: Recipient
Location: Gaibandha, Bangladesh
Client: Friendship NGO
Architect: Kashef Mahboob Chowdhury/Urbana
Design: 2008-10