Collectiveness and co-design: performing architectural relationships with monsoonal grounds

 By Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows - 1st November 2019

This research involves a reflection of my own architectural practices, integrated within the process of architecture through participation and co-design of the Rajapur Centre project, situated in a flood-prone village in remote Bangladesh. The research process took the form of community participatory activities in order to transfer local knowledge of architectural interventions that adapt to the changing climate and respond to the shifting landscape. This piece refers to the animated film below, which I produced to reflect on my research in the Rajapur village. The text should be read alongside the animation as they complement one another.

The animation represents 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.

One of the most significant consequences of this method of practising architecture is that it enabled us to identify and communicate the kinds of existing methods of adaptation and architectural practices. These existing adaptation methods  helped address the issues of responding to the rapid changing climate of the riparian characteristics of Bangladesh. Community participation enabled us to discover how the community design and build support systems, utilising local knowledge of the climate and adaptation to the changing monsoon.  

All of which lead to the explication and sharing of these largely unspoken, undocumented and often very local methods and networks of knowledge. The collection of information took the form of community engagements, interviews, and meetings which led to drawing, making and building with the community of the Rajapur village.     

We began by performing symbiotic relationships between the Monsoonal grounds and architecture, to explore how this might generate a pro-active architectural response to the changing Monsoon. Alternative participatory methods were improvised, including setting-out the building at 1:1 as a live design tool; local appraisals of construction types; and a domestic earth brickmaking programme generating income for skilled local women. Through the participation in the construction and the involvement in the design of the Rajapur Centre, the women and the community as a whole were empowered and community-ownership was achieved.

As we performed deeper relationships with the Monsoonal grounds, we discovered the grounds to have recorded extreme levels of rainfall. We could read a three-dimensional map of the rainwater levels (at various heights) etched by seeping into the land and leaving traces as a way of recording the rainwater levels, within the landscape. The grounds have also recorded increased salinity in the soil from the floodwater (due to the rising sea level) and continuous loss of moisture; indicating the changing seasons and the changing Monsoon.

The 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.

 Acknowledgements: 

A film & animation by Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows.

Many thanks to: 

Mannan Foundation Trust, charity no: 1147513 www.mannanfoundationtrust.org

The Rajapur community in Bangladesh & All our volunteers in London 

Tumpa Fellows has acquired over ten years’ experience working for London-based practices, before co-founding the interdisciplinary practice called Our Building Design and the UK-based charity Mannan Foundation Trust. She was awarded the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Rising Star Award, 2017 and her research has been shortlisted for the RIBA President’s Research Award 2019. She is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Westminster where she is also a PhD researcher; exploring a practice-based research on architectural responses to climate change in Bangladesh.  

Twitter: @Tumpa_Fellows 

Instagram: @tumpahusnayasminfellows