Shonatola Low-Cost Housing
Incremental architecture, urbanism, and flood-resilience as an answer to rapid urbanisation
R.N.C. van Poppel (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
R. Varma – Mentor (TU Delft - Public Building and Housing Design)
R. Conesa Sánchez – Mentor (TU Delft - Teachers of Practice / AE+T)
F.M. van Andel – Mentor (TU Delft - Public Building and Housing Design)
I. Bobbink – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Landscape Architecture)
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
Bangladesh its housing crisis is fueled by rural-urban migration. Climate change stimulated the rural-urban transition, leading to rapid urbanisation and the formation of informal settlements. Focusing on the Shonatola village at the peri-urban transition near Sylhet, this thesis proposes a research-based design strategy that is incremental, flood-resilient, and fit for the socio-cultural context of Bangladesh.
Incrementality poses one of the most promising solutions for affordable housing in the Global South. Incremental housing strategies of the past, such as sites and services, can serve as lessons on their design and management to inform contemporary models that allow for new, scalable site-specific interventions. The key factors for a successful strategy rely on the security of tenure, qualitative urban design, a base scenario with proper infrastructure, foundations, and load-bearing elements, as well as a final-growth scenario that allows for a middle-class DNA. Furthermore, bottom-up, community-organised, participatory processes should be matched with top-down, citywide planning.
Combining architectural design, urban planning, and water management, the proposal unifies these principles into a scalable, participatory model for affordable housing. Through an extensive literature research, case study analysis, ethnographic research, and fieldwork in Bangladesh, a framework is developed to integrate construction techniques, spatial typologies, and social structures. The design proposal consists of a phased masterplan, flood-adaptive building typologies, and a community land trust-based management strategy.