Project Description
[Text as submitted by architect] The land owner of this apartment building is a popular Bangladeshi film actress Babita, of the 1970s and best known for her performance in Satyajit Ray’s award-winning movie AshaniSanket (Distant Thunder). She came to know about SHATOTTO and Ar. Rafiq Azam from one of her closest actresses from Bollywood, Shabana Azmi. From the very beginning the aim was not only to create a place for comfortable living but also a place for celebrating life with all the cinematic reflections of nature in every aspect inspired from the life of the celebrity.
The philosophy behind designing the landscape of this building was to create a living room for the city by connecting the cityscape with the waterscape of the building. The use of the transparent and fragile glass boundary was to show respect and trust to pedestrians by welcoming them to enjoy the beautiful view of the water body, the floating trees, and the floating deck. While passing the building, the beautiful view delights their mind, starts dialoguing with them, connects them through positive psychological thoughts that develop a strong pedestrians-house-owner relationship, and results in social harmony.
The challenge of the plot was its north-facing orientation. The north-facing buildings are deprived of the monsoon summer wind and winter sun in Dhaka because of its subtropical climate due to 24.5° latitude. To deal with the challenge, the design decision was to put more water on the road facing north instead of green except an existing litchi tree, planted by the client’s father, which is interestingly getting sunlight round the year, either from the vertex or inclined sun from the gaps of the two buildings from south. For creating a deltaic impact, the building is positioned as far as possible away from the road.
The post-lintel system with brick fill and tiles cladding have been opted to build this building considering the severe seismic condition of Dhaka. The windows and other openings of the apartments of the buildings are positioned south and west-facing intentionally to create a comfortable living ambiance by ensuring ample daylight, cross ventilation, and the view of adjacent Gulshan lake. A living room of Ms. Babita’s apartment is replaced by a north and east facing special terrace with a garden and sitting arrangement. The place provides an amicable view of adjacent Gulshan lake in day and the moon peeps through the bamboo trees, planted on the terrace, at night. The vertical gardening in different levels of the building creates a series of messy bouncing greenery in the whole apartment building. Appropriately designed roof has made it a Rendezvous not only for social gathering but also a space for grass, trees, birds and butterflies.
The dramatic change of sunlight on water from sun’s vertex light to winter’s shade, the shadow, the penumbra, the twilight, the hidden artificial lights play, the floating trees and the hanging green in different levels – all these are creating a Mi seen scene of celebrating life in the “Delta”.
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