HARMONIZING LAND , LIFE AND WATER

Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology, Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture and Planning, Dhaka

Project idea

HARMONIZING LAND LIFE AND WATER
INITIATING COMMUNITY INTERRACTIVE TOURISM ADDRESSING THE FLOATING CULTURE
SITE _ TANGUAR HAOR, SUNAMGANJ, SYLHET.

This is a project of WETLAND CONSERVATION of international importance, a journey towards the raw nature of Tanguar Haor, a strategy of alternative income generating source for haor community through tourism. Tanguar Haor is one of the largest wetland ecosystems in northeast region of Bangladesh comprising of 10,000 ha of land area. As per Birdlife International, Tanguar haor has been recognised as one of the most important wetlands not only of Bangladesh but also of South Asia (Alam, IUCN, 2012).In 2000, the hoar basin was declared as a 2nd Ramsar site (GoB,2004). this wetland is gradually drawing the attention of a particular segment of tourist market. The bird-watchers, freelance photographers, adventure seeking tourists are the main components of the segment. Roughly 8000 to 10.000 tourists visit this wetland. Enormous crystal blue waters of Tanguar haor will make the area a hub tourism in future with a different flavour and attire. It will happen even if we want it or not. We welcome guest. But don’t want tanguar haor to become crowded or polluted like rangamati, don’t want loses our culture, natural assets nor see it consigned to a museum.
Objective is to create a sustainable community interactive tourism by generating conservation policies to protect the critical ecological area. The design phase is based on 3 distinguished interrelated phases. The phases begins with the journey of a tourist with the ample opportunity of exhibiting the whole haor by creating specific points. Each point is signified as a village of culinary testing village or music interpretation (hason rajar gaan) villege or craft exhibiting villege etc.
Each village provides the opportunity of accommodation. This accommodation module is both served for tourist and the village people. This module is an idea based floating prototype, a fixed anchor based self-sufficient minimum FLOATING dwelling unit with the adaptability and flexibility to the diversified landscape and water height of the haor. I DON’T WANT TO DEAL WATER AS A MATTER OF DANGER RATHER A MATTER CHANCE AND CHALLENGE. The floating unit is mainly based on the 3basic concepts – Ecological, vernacular and recyclable to minimize the negative environmental impact and careful use of materials, energy, and space efficiency.

And the 3rd phase is based on the conservation approach by generating policies and designing vernacular feature for tourists to exhibit the raw nature of tanguar haor, the wildlife,the flora fauna and the sanctuaries. This is a vision 2040 to introduce a sustainable community model- environmentally acceptable, socially compatible and economically sustainable maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, and biological diversity and life support systems.

Project description

Far away, at the northeast corner of our map, natural wonder of Bngladesh awaits. To breath and to touch the raw nature, let me take you through a journey, a journey by boat through the swamp forest, sanctuaries, hearing chirping sound of birds and experiencing the spellbound landscape-its time of being lost, but no, hason raja’s villagers are waiting for you to welcome with folk songs, the local craftsman are ready to adorned you with local handicrafts, are you hungry? It’s time to step in the food village to taste the local foods, are you convinced to stay over night-the floating unit offering you an adventurous accommodation. Yes our country is rich enough with this assets, it is high time of proper planning.

This is a project of WETLAND CONSERVATION of international importance, a JOURNEY towards the raw nature of Tanguar Haor, a STRATEGY OF ALTRENATIVE INCOME GENERATING SOURCE for haor community.
Objective is to introduce a sustainable community model-environmentally acceptable, socially compatible and economically sustainable maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes with biological diversity and life support systems.

Technical information

The proposed structural module that is the accommodation unit or cultural hub ; the structures are of triangular form to mainly resist with the wind and heavy rainfall. The concept was to propose temporary shelter which is supposed to be merged with natural setup ; so being inspired from tent and pitched roof pattern the outcome of formal expression turns into dynamic composition triangular mass hidden in swamp forest.
Each unit of equilateral triangle ( a= 12'6") acts a unit model and with the expansion of demand the modular Lego type joint may create a cluster of 4 person 6 person living unit.
The construction material was inspired from the vernacular approach ; used locally available bamboo; wooden panel; woven bamboo and a layer of drum to support floating feature ; altogether these are used as construction material.
For natural ; biodiversity preservation a layer of policy was introduced and landscaping was proposed by protecting native species in a larger scale to address ecological sustainability.