Kazi Khaleed Ashraf
Kazi Khaleed Ashraf is an architect and urbanist, and director-general of Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements.
Kazi Khaleed Ashraf is an architect and urbanist, and director-general of Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements.
The city is perhaps the greatest innovation carried out by humans. Although nature has been used as an analogy in conceiving the fabric of the city, there is no such thing as the “city” in nature.
Described as the doyen of Bangladesh’s architecture, Muzharul Islam introduced modernism in the country as well as the highest ideals of the craft.
The city, the one that we want to arrive at, remains illusory
A city is a web of facilities and opportunities in which different agencies and communities lay stakes, push boundaries, and make bullish claims of making things better.
Here was a river that was larger than life, larger than anything I had encountered before. Flowing gloriously and indifferently, the river presented a mythic scale against which I felt terribly puny.
One striking aspect of the DAP document is the geographical scope of Rajuk, in how it signals an expanded Dhaka.
The Detailed Area Plan (DAP) for 2022-2035, produced by Rajuk, is a radical and innovative document in the planning history of Dhaka.
Despite the usual gloomy narratives, there are opportunities to transform Dhaka into a modern but ecologically attuned metropolis. The transformation can be carried out with our own resources, and our own imagination.
Public spaces constitute the life-stream of a city, and these are in short supply in Dhaka.
If after thousands of years of human civilisation, we crawl on our roads in our vehicles at 7km per hour and die untimely deaths just by walking, there is something wrong with the picture.
All cities change, and better cities—those that are not at the lowest rung of “most liveable cities”—change through careful planning and crafting of its assets. Dhaka is changing through radical norms, in a fury of demolition and building.
Tomorrow's Bangladesh is already here. Achievements and progress in all fields—from manufacturing to cricket, and from architectural excellence to social indicators—open up new prospects and promises for Bangladesh. PricewaterhouseCoopers, in its global economic projection for 2050, estimates that Bangladesh can potentially become the world's 28th largest economy by 2030, surpassing countries like Australia, Spain, South Africa, and Malaysia in economic growth.
Dhaka is a paradox. The more we build assuming we are “developing,” the more we dig ourselves into an urban mess: Transportation is a chaos. Travelling is a nightmare. Khals vanish, and roads turn to khals. Public space is non-existent. Housing is in disarray.
All of a sudden Dhaka's Airport Road is looking like a Potemkin Road. With an exhibition of “bonsai” trees, odd garden-like set-ups,
The future landscape of the country depends on what we make of Dhaka city. Any national plan will have to consider the urban scenario of the whole country, from the primary cities to the small towns, but particularly Dhaka city as it will continue to play a vital role in impacting places throughout the country.
The train arrives at the station, and where the platform begins, a white concrete plaque with dark letters in Bangla announces the name