Kashef Chowdhury URBANA

Friendship Centre

Friendship Centre
© Eric Chenal

FRIENDSHIP CENTRE

Kashef Chowdhury - URBANA

PHOTOGRAPHS
Eric Chenal, Anup Basak, Kashef Chowdhury

AREA
2897 m²

YEAR
2011

LOCATION
Gaibandha, Bangladesh

CATEGORY
Installations & Structures

Text description provided by architect.

The Friendship Center near the district town of Gaibandha, Bangladesh, is for an NGO which works with some of the poorest in the country and who live mainly in riverine islands (chars) with very limited access and opportunities.

Friendship Centre
© Eric Chenal
Friendship Centre
© Anup Basak

Friendship uses the facility for its own training programs and will also rent out for meetings, training, conferences etc. as income generation.

The low lying land, which is located in rural Gaibandha where agriculture is predominant, is under threat of flooding if the embankment encircling the town and peripheries break.

Friendship Centre
© Eric Chenal
Friendship Centre
© Eric Chenal

An extensive program with a very limited fund meant that raising the structures above flood level (a height of eight feet) was not an option: nearly the entire available fund would be lost below grade. Being in an earthquake zone and the low bearing capacity of the silty soil added further complications.

The third and final design relies on a surrounding embankment for flood protection while building directly on existing soil, in load bearing masonry.

Friendship Centre
© Eric Chenal
Friendship Centre
© Eric Chenal

Rainwater and surface run-off are collected in internal pools and the excess is pumped to an excavated pond, also to be used for fishery.

The design relies on natural ventilation and cooling, being facilitated by courtyards and pools and the earth covering on roofs. The ‘Ka' Block contains the reception pavilion, offices, library, training/conference rooms and pavilions, a prayer space and a small 'cha-shop’.

The 'Kha' Block, connected by three archways, is for more private functions and houses the dormitories, the dining pavilion and staff and family quarters.

Friendship Centre
© Eric Chenal
Friendship Centre
© Eric Chenal

The laundry and drying shed is located on the other side of the pond. There is no air-conditioning and the entire lighting is through LED and energy efficient lamps.

As in construction, so in conception - the complex of the centre rise and exist as echo of ruins, alive with the memory of the remains of Mahasthan (3rd century BC), some sixty kilometers away.

Constructed and finished primarily of one material - local hand- made bricks - the spaces arc woven out of pavilions, courtyards, pools and greens; corridors and shadows. Simplicity is the intent, monastic is the feel.

The centre serves and brings together some of the poorest of poor in the country and -by extension - in the world, yet in the extreme limitation of means was a search for the luxury of light and shadows of the economy and generosity of small spaces; of the joy of movement and discovery in the bare and the essential.

Friendship Centre
© Kashef Chowdhury
Friendship Centre
© Eric Chenal


Friendship Centre
Elevation


Friendship Centre
Section


Friendship Centre
Plan
Friendship Centre
Axon

Kashef Chowdhury URBANA
T +880 2 223361515 M +880 1730 051132
Kashef Chowdhury URBANA
House 56, Road 5A Dhanmondi, Dhaka 1209 Bangladesh