Dhaka is a city with lot of dynamics and potentials. Conventionally whichever the streets, sidewalks and outdoors cannot offer, Dhaka offers more generously. Individuals has choice to walk or stop to have a cup of tea at any moment, day and night, in a roadside tea stall, or even have a friendly chat as long as one wants with fellows. The freedom of choice is not in lifestyle only; it is reflected in city's design as well. This city is spontaneous and organic; in other word the city is not conventionally planned. This liberty results in "chaos" and "promise" simultaneously. Likewise the hard tissues of Dhaka desire to have the promise of soft-infill. Aspiration for water, the 'urban blue' in built up hard areas could be explored with context of this deltaic landscape.
The first, week long project in the urbanism studio in Spring
2016 in BRAC University, was to conceive an URBAN BLUE (water) in a hard urban
tissue of Dhaka. The initial exercise was appreciation of BLUES from memory.
Scale, Senses, Composition and Celebration of waterscapes, from Madhabpur lake
in Sreemangal to Kahn's National Assembly Building were compelling examples to
study. How these waterscapes serve the society and how people appropriate them
were the most important features to discuss.
Learning
Throughout the week, the
designers(students) asked questions to themselves about mediating between
aesthetics(?) and usability, bringing behavioural change through design, siting a waterbody, dealing with the beneficiaries and role playing
authority like city corporation etc. Eventually an URBAN BLUE appeared in
different parts of the capital city, in paper though, with various shapes and
configurations. Picking up the designed shapes may make a beautiful matrix and
alphabet of a language. It appeared that water bodies sharing an edge with road
and footpath as well as buildings have more to offer the society; and
contribute more to make the city humane rather than the ones just exhibited in
a field or boundary in a lonely residential area. Last but not the least to mention
some beautiful names of different deliveries are- করেণূ
সরোবর,
By The Blue, কলতান, জল বেলা,
সুধাতট
.
