<i>Bangladeshi school project wins Aga Khan Award </i>

The primary school project in Rudrapur.

A primary school project of Bangladesh, 'School in Rudrapur in Dinajpur' has been selected as one of the 9 projects for Aga Khan Award for Architecture, a triennial prize fund of $500,000, world's largest architectural award.
Aga Khan himself announced nine recipients of the 2007 Aga Khan Award for Architecture at a ceremony marking the 30th anniversary of the award in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on September 4, according to a press release received in Dhaka.
The school is part of the Modern Education and Training Institute (METI) of a Bangladeshi NGO, Dipshikha, which places works for helping children develop their own potential and use it in a creative way.
The other projects selected by the 2007 Award Master Jury are Samir Kassir Square, Beirut, Lebanon, Rehabilitation of the City of Shibam, Yemen, Central Market, Koudougou, Burkina Faso, University of Technology Petronas, Bandar Seri Iskandar, Malaysia, Restoration of the Amiriya Complex, Rada, Yemen, Moulmein Rise Residential Tower, Singapore, Royal Netherlands Embassy, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Rehabilitation of the Walled City, Nicosia, Cyprus.
While announcing the name of the award winners Aga Khan said, “Our attempt and aspiration is to try to have the humility, but also the competence, to understand what is happening and to seek to influence it so that future generations can live in a better environment.”
The project in Rudrapur, a village in north-west Bangladesh, was hand-built in four months by architects, local craftsmen, pupils, parents and teachers, using traditional methods and materials of construction but adapting them in new ways with an innovative twist.
The architects, Anna Heringer from Austria and Eike Roswag from Germany, made every effort to engage the skills of local craftsmen, helping them refine processes and learn new techniques that they could then use to improve the general standard of rural housing.
"This joyous and elegant two-storey primary school in rural Bangladesh has emerged from a deep understanding of local materials and a heart-felt connection to the local community. Its innovation lies in the adaptation of traditional methods and materials of construction to create light-filled celebratory spaces as well as informal spaces for children," the jury commented in its citation.
The jury says, "The design solution may not be replicable in other parts of the Islamic world, as local conditions vary, but the approach which allows new design solutions to emerge from an in-depth knowledge of the local context and ways of building - clearly provides a fresh and hopeful model for sustainable building globally."
The Aga Khan Award for Architecture was established by the Aga Khan in 1977 to identify and encourage building concepts that successfully address the needs and aspirations of Muslim societies.