Khudi Bari means ‘little home’ in Marina Tabassum’s native, Bangladeshi language. The construction’s compact quantity, newly put in among the many inexperienced expanses of the Vitra Campus, simply exterior Piet Oudolf’s backyard, simply reinforces its identify. It’s small, crisp and delightful, seemingly delicate and nearly disappearing among the many tree canopies round it. However do not be fooled; its design represents a mammoth thought, a sturdy and environment friendly development conceived after prolonged analysis to deal with the numerous pure and human-made disasters that the architect’s residence nation of Bangladesh has been struggling.
Telling the story of all this and extra, the set up of Khudi Bari within the grounds of the well-known website in Germany’s Weil am Rhein is a celebration of Tabassum’s considering; this dynamic, necessary instance of her hyper-local considering and socially pushed work has now turn into a part of one of many world’s most well-known collections of architectural constructions.
(Picture credit score: Julien Lanoo)
Step inside Khudi Bari by Marina Tabassum
This ‘little home’ was designed as a response to Bangladesh’s recurrent and frequent flooding disasters, a results of local weather change. The nation’s positioning on the Bengal Delta, on the mouths of three massive rivers, makes it vulnerable to flood because the Himalayan glaciers soften resulting from Earth’s rising temperatures. A staggering 80 per cent of Bangladesh is floodplain.
‘[The country] is extra of a waterscape than a panorama,’ Tabassum says. ‘In Bangladesh, there are these homes within the native vernacular, a type of our personal “Ikea”, that may be purchased in markets. However they’re typically too large and costly to achieve those that want them probably the most.’ She got down to create her personal, compact model, fabricated from inexpensive supplies, conducting workshops with native communities to attach with them (not a straightforward activity, constructing a relationship of belief with the totally different communities concerned, Tabassum stresses) and work out who wants them probably the most; but additionally to unfold the phrase concerning the design and train native folks how they are often constructed. Via a basis she has arrange, devoted to this trigger, Tabassum has already constructed 100 Khudi Baris throughout Bangladesh.
Architect Marina Tabassum
(Picture credit score: Asif Salman)
Tabassum and her Dhaka-based structure studio composed Khudi Bari as a modular residence prototype. The design is cost-efficient to construct and transfer, demountable and straightforward to erect with out specialist constructing information. Made from bamboo and corrugated metal panels, it may be transported simply to deal with individuals who have been displaced resulting from floods after which moved once more if wanted as water plains change, sandbanks and plots turn into eroded and households want to maneuver once more. Its fundamental enclosed area sits excessive above the bottom degree, making certain water can move by its base if wanted, whereas folks and their possessions can stay secure and dry above.
‘It started as a small home however turned a system that may be scaled up,’ Tabassum explains. ‘We want this to be public information of an thought. Not one thing for architects solely, however one thing everybody could make their very own.’
(Picture credit score: Julien Lanoo)
Khudi Bari’s set up on the Vitra Campus sees it turn into a part of the furnishings producer’s and Vitra chairman emeritus Rolf Fehlbaum’s imaginative and prescient to place collectively a household of buildings displaying progressive architectural concepts and designs that problem the norm and provide options, every representing their respective instances. ‘It isn’t nearly outdated [low-tech] expertise, but additionally about modern concepts,’ Fehlbaum stated on the Khudi Bari launch.
‘Why would Vitra present one thing that may be a necessity in Bangladesh? It may very well be learn as exoticism. It’s not. It’s associated to our work, as we now have labored with Shigeru Ban and his cardboard emergency constructions. And Prouvé did his personal emergency homes for individuals who have misplaced their houses, one in all which we now have in our assortment. It is a crucial contribution to our campus. The structure of resilience may also be lovely.’
(Picture credit score: Julien Lanoo)
Tabassum agrees: ‘Vitra has an archival curiosity, I see this as an archive. Right here, it’s undoubtedly not serving its objective as a home, nevertheless it’s nearly representational for me, exhibiting that the local weather disaster is actual, we share the identical planet. And the folks affected have zero carbon footprint. It turns into a logo.’ It’s also undeniably a sublime design. Nevertheless it’s an structure that works onerous for its objective, ‘it isn’t magnificence for magnificence’s sake’, says Tabassum. ‘And everybody has a proper to magnificence and to good design.’
The primary, experimental Khudi Bari was inbuilt Dhaka in 2020. It has been tweaked and perfected since, and finally rolled out as a part of the muse’s work. The architect, who has solely inbuilt her residence nation to this point (citing her missing native information to construct elsewhere), is now taking a look at how this little home can evolve. What is the subsequent step in Tabassum’s Khudi Bari explorations? Watch this area.
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