ARCASIA launched the Ar. Barry Will Award 2021 in commemoration of renowned architect and urban planner Barry Will, who had always promoted and contributed to environmentally sensitive designs. The theme of the award was to have a focus on socially-related architecture. Platform of Community Action and Architecture is a network of professionals who work at the community level to create better living environments by co-creating spaces. POCAA’s winning proposal for the Ar. Barry Will Award 2021, ‘Common Ground’, is about creating community-led productive gardens and collective learning space, focusing on waste management in two of Dhaka’s densely populated low-income communities. Our objective was to initiate ‘placemaking’, which brings together the community, especially the women and youth groups, to create inclusive, green breathing spaces. The process of placemaking would positively impact the mental and physical health of the inhabitants and take a step closer to a healthier neighborhood. To implement this work, we are working primarily with the natural leaders of low- income communities. Through community mapping and trust-building workshops, we worked with four communities (Gabtoli City Colony, Kallyanpur Adarsho Boshoti, Chaad Uddan community, and Dwipnagar community). We did placemaking interventions of various scales in three communities and produced a book for children, condensing the learning workshops for place activation.
Our winning project ‘Common Ground’ to the Barrywill 2021 award had the objective to initiate placemaking together with the community, especially the women and youth groups, by creating inclusive, green breathing spaces in congested and informal settlements in Dhaka. The project created community-led productive gardens and collective learning space, focusing on waste management in multiple of Dhaka’s densely populated low-income communities (Gabtoli city colony, Chand uddyan community, Dwipnagar community, Kallyanpur Adarsho Boshoti)
Being one of the most dense cities in the world, Dhaka has a vast lack of open spaces in general. The ideal amount of greenery for a city is 25% of its total area, but in today’s Dhaka, barely 5% of the city is green and open, which is hugely inadequate and unhealthy for its residents. And in low-income communities, finding a breathing space for the inhabitants is almost impossible. Almost one- third of the city’s population (over 12 million) lives in more than 4,500 slums in the capital city of Dhaka alone, which are characterized by congestion and a lack of access to utilities like electricity, clean water, and sanitary facilities. It is estimated that more than half the slum inhabitants are children, and they suffer the most physically and mentally from growing up in such an unhealthy environment. Children living in such areas have a greater chance of delaying or failing to enroll in school, and even if they do, they have higher chances of dropping out. They usually utilize the narrow alleys, veranda spaces, shopfronts, and school premises to play and spend time.
As our standard working method, we first sat with the elders to map the community for various services (houses, infrastructure, waste and vegetation practices, etc.). After that, we focused our work through Ar. Barry Will Award, creating places with children surrounding the previously mentioned community school.
‘Placemaking without place’
‘Placemaking’ can be a method for promoting the “right to the city”, the democratic power of design, and the potential for urban development. It is not a one-time act or policy action, but a continuous process which empowers the inhabitants. Even in the congested areas, there is potential to engage children with tangible and intangible resources in a meaningful way and encourage children to develop new skills, be kind and empathetic and to coexist with nature. The shared values contribute to the social, physical, ecological, and cultural growth of the whole community. And the process of placemaking can create a positive impact on the mental and physical health of the inhabitants and take a step closer to a healthier neighborhood. The eviction of Dwipnagar community forced us to think about what the children could take from the involvement? We then developed a children’s booklet incorporating this series of activities that took place through this project. There have been and will be more evictions like these for the children living in informal settlements all over the city. We felt that the eviction force was bigger than any physical intervention we could do. We focused on what each child can take through the learning process of placemaking that they were part of.
Deepnagar Children group, Kalyanpur Children group, Gabtoli Children group,
Institute of Architects Bangladesh (IAB), Barrywill foundation
Placemaking without place
Learning through playing
POCAA (Platform of Community Action and Architecture) – A platform where people from different backgrounds with the interest of working for low-income communities engage with each other.
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