CHAABI

Project Name: CHAABI
Completion Year: 2022
Gross Built Area (m2/ ft2): 1035.23m2/11,143.12ft2
Project Location: Berabo, Rupganj, Narayanganj.
Photo Credits: Maruf Raihan

Project Description

In a serene environment, situated just outskirt of Dhaka city with a close proximity to the river Shitalakha, the design was intended for residence of a family. The residence with its transitional layers of indoor-outdoor spaces offers generous spreads of filtered daylight glazing through the interiors. It intended for people to look for the unknown and ask from the unknown. Hence, the residence was named CHAABI which means to want something in Bengali.
The flow of the house’s function expresses openness and nature. While the main entrance acts towards welcoming guests, other entrances are crafting the openness and blending with the surrounding nature. In the ground floor, there are bedrooms, home theatre, dining room, swimming pool, gym, guest room, kitchen and staff room. The water body beside the living room is open to sky and south opening gives the view of the nature with the calmness of south wind. The water body beside the house has a straight connection to the house. The narrow walkway on the edge of the water body which takes to a large open space, giving the feeling of going from small space to large space.
A series of light-filled stairways provide visual connection with the landscape and emulate walking through the green grass as one passes between spaces.
On the first floor, there’s an intimate family area where rain can be relished and a door that opens to the outdoor area where one can just sit and cherish the rain. Besides that, there’s a guest room, kitchenette and a long corridor leads to various spaces such as the family living room where is a space called address-desk. It’s an elevated wooden stage where there are three microphones to give speech. Then there are few bedrooms and a study room. The master bedroom is especially celebrated where a stair connecting it to the open field.
The bedroom over a contoured land was placed thoughtfully as a courtesy to the only daughter of Mr. & Mrs. Mahbubul Alam.
The use of materials reflects the architecture of the residence. Portraying an iconic but sensitive use of concrete for walls and ceilings and Mahogany wood for doors-windows, exhibits the materials’ versality to their fullest. The use of glasses with no grills allows to enter filtered glazing sunlight. Matte tiles were used in floors giving a subtle finish.
The design of the residence incorporated a few emotions provoking elements. One of these are memory traps. These were placed in the ground where ambient indirect light comes from. They kept memorabilia of their parents’ and grandparents’ there to remember and treasure them.
The design intended for people to look for peace and calmness as well as be in sync with the surroundings. This subtle incorporation provides the users with both physical and psychological connections with nature. The discussion of the project came to a point where the whole thing seemed like a poem. That assured the client enough to say, “You write and I will interpret it in my own way”.

IFIC BANK LIMITED

LOCATION: 227/A GULSHAN TEJGOAN LINK ROAD, DHAKA, BANGLADESH
OWNER: IFIC BANK LIMITED
COMPLETION YEAR: 2012
IFIC Bank PLC is one of the renowned banks of Bangladesh, approached their 100th branch to be open in NINAKABBO as Gulshan-Tejgaon Link Road Branch. The design idea of the project was to portray the history of money in different spaces of the bank to create some connection between bank and its users.

FERA

PROJECT TITLE: FERA  
LOCATION: HOUSE 02, ROAD 123, GULSHAN, DHAKA, BANGLADESH
OWNER: MR. TARIQUE AHMED, DIRECTOR, M&J GROUP
COMPLETION YEAR: 2009 The name “FERA” was inspired from our different emotions and memories to return back to home from historical, cultural, sociological & psychological perspective. The project was designed considering an independent house for the family to celebrate their living.

KAHINEE

PROJECT TITLE: KANINEE
LOCATION: PLOT #18, ROAD # 16, BLOCK # B. BANANI, DHAKA-1213, BANGLADESH
OWNER: MR. FAKIR MUNIRUZZAMAN, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF FAKIR GROUP OF INDUSTRIES
COMPLETION YEAR: 2017

KAHINEE is an independent house redesigned for a family to celebrate their life by contributing to the aesthetic design, such as the form, shape, color, texture, lighting, furniture and accessories to reflect the elegance and encourage the inspiration.

NRB BANK LIMITED

PROJECT TITLE: GULSHAN 01 & GULSHAN 02 BRANCH OF NRB BANK LIMITED
LOCATION: GULSHAN 01 & GULSHAN 02 BRANCH OF NRB BANK, DHAKA, BANGLADESH
OWNER: NRB BANK LIMITED
COMPLETION YEAR: 2014
NRB Bank is an innovative fourth generation bank in Bangladesh which commenced banking operations on 04 August, 2013, with a vision to be the leading dedicated financial institution for Non-Resident Bangladeshis to invest in Bangladesh and for Bangladeshi individuals and corporates to access international markets. Being Interior design consultant and brand standard development consultant of this two particular branch, we came up to with an innovative idea to incorporate numbers in a graphical illustration to symbolize bank’s core activities.

CPA TOWER

PROJECT TITLE: CPA TOWER
LOCATION: BESIDE OF EXISTING PORT BUILDING, CHITTAGONG, BANGLADESH
OWNER: CHITTAGONG PORT AUTHORITY
DESIGN YEAR: 2016-2017
STATUS: UNBUILD

CPA TOWER supposed to be a 40 storied with 3 basements futuristic commercial building with modern building features & facilities. Different human engaging activities such as head office of CPA, corporate office space, Five Star Hotel, Shopping Complex, Cineplex, Entertainment Zone etc. functions will have a common address for Chittagong City and the rebranding will have a strong architectural statement of CPA as organization and add a greater value to the national image. There are 40 alphabets which can be used at the beginning to create meaningful Bangla words, each floor of the building will be dedicated to those 40 alphabets as tribute to our mother language.

SABURSAMASTI

PROJECT TITLE: SABURSAMASTI
LOCATION: BAGANBARI, KENDUA, KUNCHAN, DHAKA, BANGLADESH
OWNER: MR. M.A. SABUR, CHAIRMAN, MASCO GROUP
DESIGN YEAR: 2019-2020
STATUS: UNBUILD

As we move towards the 21st century, the family is changing in structure and in composition and has started to disintegrate and became more nuclear in nature in the urban cities. Therefore, the client desires to have a peaceful place for his extended family where members of multiple generations can live together in the outskirt of the city. The intention of the project is to dwell in a private residential complex together within the tranquility of nature full ample greenery and natural water stream. The client is decided to build their own family residence as his legacy to his next generation on a same complex of twelve acre of land. Grandeur, privacy as well as comfort are the basic demands of the client. Their desire to live together in the natural peaceful environment has created the opportunity to utilize the hefty picturesque landscape surrounded by ample greenery and natural water stream within and around the site is a fortune in the context of Dhaka for the design. The architect believes that one’s living is the reflection of oneself and thus the architect was inspired to determine a way of relating the client’s identity in the project. The name of the project SABURSAMASTI has come from his name and his intention to live jointly for multiple generations. The first part SABUR is a Bangla word meaning patience after the name of Mr. M. A. Sabur and the last part Samasti is another Bangla word means aggregation or collective respecting his intension of living together.

BIDYUT BHABAN

PROJECT TITLE: BIDYUT BHABAN
LOCATION: 1, NABAB ABDUL GANI ROAD, DHAKA
OWNER: BANGLADESH POWER DEVELOPMENT BOARD
COMPLETION YEAR: 2021

The idea of recondition is often associated with vehicles, why not buildings? The traditional process in our country till now has been to demolish a building if it has reached a certain age. If we make a shift in that perspective we can find perhaps without demolishing an edifice we could make it rich in contemporary architectural ideas; thus preserving its heritage while making it absolutely functional for contemporary use. Our goal here is to preserve sites that add to the identity of our nation and not severe them.

Honorable Minister of Power & Energy Mr. Nasrul Hamid Bipu is a believer in merging aesthetics with creativity and this initiative is in fact his inspiration. The idea was to give the old building a new aesthetic with functional contemporary amenities.

The office had to remain fully functional and overcoming these challenges while working within the aforementioned limitations proved a matter of careful consideration and precise planning for SYSTEM architects and every professional team involved.

This type of project was undertaken by us as a rescue mission and we did it with a lot of love. When we look back at the journey of turning this closed down and stagnant building into an aesthetically pleasing and contemporary functional edifice, we feel happy; and finally it brings me joy to think that this effort has been adequately connected to the centenary of our beloved father of the nation, Bangabandhu.

BATB

PROJECT TITLE: BATB HEAD OFFICE
LOCATION: NEW DOHS ROAD, MOHAKHALI, DHAKA-1206, BANGLADESH
OWNER: BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO, BANGLADESH
COMPLETION YEAR: 2003

In BATB, the pride of unity in the workplace is deliberately emphasized [concept of many], rather than the elegant segregation of namely blue and white collar popularly accepted in other corporate workplaces in that time. The main challenges were to construct the office space inside the factory building, the construction has to be done without closing the current office and complete it within very short time constraint where after certain period of the day construction is not even allowed. Construction time management was key to make it a successful feature. The engagement of the key members of the BATB played a huge role in designing an effective workspace. A new type of branding was initiated by using the local wooden artisans in the interior works to portray age old traditional practice of Bangladesh.

MEGHNA BHABAN

PROJECT TITLE: MEGHNA BHABAN
LOCATION: PLOT# 72, AGRABAD C/A, CHITTAGONG, BANGLADESH
OWNER: MEGHNA PETROLIUM LIMITED
COMPLETION YEAR: UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Meghna Bhaban is a high rise commercial building of Meghna Petroleum Limited (a Government owned organization). This project on the culturally and economically eminent port city of Chittagong has been designed to represent both the city and the institution and the good fortunes they bring along for our Nation towards development.