Working together to help a village grow sustainably

An international collaboration between Birmingham City University (BCU) and Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) was inspired by Abubokkar Siddiki’s visit to his parents’ village of Kazirgaon in 2018, located in an area of wetlands in north-east Bangladesh. The project explores UN Sustainable Development Goals, rapid urbanisation in rural settings, as well as transnational education.

Abubokkar Siddiki

Greenwich Public Health

Eccles Sze Ng

Birmingham City University

Kazirgaon village and its bazaar have grown exponentially over the past 10 years. The rate the village has grown shows the potential to become a small town, merging the eight surrounding villages together over the next 15-20 years. However, there are no architects, landscape architects, urban planners, or planners to help the villagers to plan their built environment.

The local high street is imploding, faced with issues such as lack of drainage, lack of access to clean drinking water, poor hygiene and fire safety, and lack of proper planning. The village also needs increased access to education and basic health care facilities, and population growth is leading to rapid unplanned expansion of the village and the boundaries of the bazaar.

There is a need to tackle the issue of rapid growth on a village level. A well-planned village infrastructure with all the basic amenities and technology will create opportunities within the village for all generations. This would encourage people to stay within their local district and reduce migration and rapid urbanisation in larger cities.

As we seek to rebalance the urban-rural divide and the need to address rural-urban migration, the physical implementation of secondary city plans is one of the areas that can have the most positive impact in the coming decade.

HRH The Prince of Wales, The Prince’s Foundation, Rapid Planning Toolkit, 2020

To tackle the issues of rapid growth and expansion in Kazirgaon, an international collaboration was formed between Birmingham City University (BCU), Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) in Bangladesh, and Abubokkar Siddiki, a British Bangladeshi Architect and a committee member of the RIBA Southeast London Architects Group (RIBA SELAG) in the UK. The Co-Lab module (an existing system developed by BCU) was created specifically for the students to learn and apply the Prince’s Foundations Rapid Toolkit on a pilot project, to address the issues of the local community and develop a sustainable masterplan for the village of Kazirgaon.

The project was led by professor Kawshik Saha of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology in Bangladesh, Eccles Ng, who is a deputy course director of BA (Hons) Landscape Architecture at Birmingham City University, and Abubokkar Siddiki. The Co-Lab project explored population growth and accommodating the growth expansion sustainably over the next 10-20 years. The initial intent of the project started with a conversation with the local communities, local authorities, and the village panchayat (village council). The students started by looking at current issues faced by the villagers, how their problems can be managed, how to plan the village growth and expansion sustainably, and create a catalyst for economic growth that reduces poverty and provides housing solutions for the poor.

The structure for the project was inspired by The Prince’s Foundation’s Rapid Planning Toolkit, which has been created in collaboration with a number of partners including UNHabitat and the Commonwealth Association of Planners. The toolkit is a four-step process designed to guide a multidisciplinary approach in the inclusive planning and design of rapidly growing cities and towns. The toolkit is currently being used in secondary cities in Sierra Leone, Ghana and The Gambia to collaboratively plan for the expansion of urban areas, thereby reducing the chance of needlessly depleting natural resources, ensuring adequate sanitation, reducing vehicle use, and allowing walkable access through planned roads and routes.

Kazirgaon sits within a unique seasonal wetland ecosystem in the northeast area of Bangladesh called Haor. During monsoon season, Haor become a vast inland sea and the villages appear as islands. During the dry season, this becomes a vast stretch of agricultural land.

Due to climate change, seasonal flooding and economic influences, the lives of local people have increasingly become separated from their connection to the water. The brief for the students was to work in groups to create a new vision for the village, which is located approximately 40km southwest of Sylhet. The students had a challenging task, as they had to deal with the consequence of the diversion of water from the river of Kazirgaon, causing the local area to dry up. However, to protect the ecosystem and the livelihood of the local communities, students felt it was important to maintain river-basin flows and bring the river back to its former self.

Though the toolkit is designed to be used in towns and cities, Gramer Haor applies it to a growing village in Bangladesh. This process has encouraged the students to understand the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with a holistic approach to reach everyone in every segment of life – the goals including education, employment, inequality, accessibility of settlements and the environment.

Bangladesh is experiencing one of the highest urbanisation growths globally, however, the number of professionals who are able to help plan this urban growth is small. That is why this transnational education and international collaboration is important – to develop the students with skill sets now to become the professionals who can shape the future of the country. The project provides a platform for UK students to have the experience of working on an international live project in Bangladesh that addresses the climate change issues in a rural context. It also gives students in Bangladesh the chance to think about the environment in which they live. The development of villages is crucial to urbanisation in this part of the world.

Image of the Haor wetland area of Bangladesh.

Overlaying the initial sketch of the high street onto the street photograph.

© Ferdous Rahman Mugdho

Young people in the village, curious about the students’ proposals.

© Ferdous Rahman Mugdho

There were three sites under consideration in the village. The bazaar, which is the equivalent to a local high street; Bhumin, which is social housing; and a residential area which is expanding. Data is scarce in rural Bangladesh; however, this provided an opportunity to gather information first hand through community engagement with the villagers. This approach follows the toolkit guidelines which the students were following.

The students and staff carried out a walking tour of the entire village, spoke to the local residents, took photographs and the students then produced surveys of the three areas, the village bazaar, Bhumin area and the main village (the oldest neighbourhood).

Through the conversation with the villagers and the meeting with the village leaders and stakeholders, they were able to establish the approximate population in 2011 and the population increase by 2020. Based on the workshop and conversation carried out by the staff and the students, it was evident that the population is increasing rapidly and a solution was needed to accommodate the population growth.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions and other commitments, BCU students were unable to travel to the village of Kazirgaon, therefore the SUST students were their eyes and ears, and carried out site visits and reported back to their designated groups.

Members of the project included students on the MA and BA Landscape and Architecture courses.

Many of the UK students had a part time job and studied full time, whereas students in Bangladesh are fully focused on their studies. This made it challenging for the students to make time to do their projects and have meetings. The time difference also had a huge impact on how they approached working together as a part of the team. The Bangladesh group really appreciated this opportunity, as the experience was quite unique. They had not done online collaboration before, linked to an international university, collaborating on Teams and Miro boards, and it was quite a cultural shock. All the students had to learn very quickly to adapt, assimilate and progress. International lectures have enhanced the learning and teaching experience to give it a more global vision.

The international collaboration where west meets east was a huge learning curve for both sides. We started by looking at what the village meant to each of the students and brought together elements from both sides to create a narrative. The danger was that the students may end up designing and planning a village that was an immediate response to what is already there, rather than creating a more sustainable long-term solution. For example, the end results were architectural solutions that took the typical village typology and married it with a western contemporary approach, using local resources and materials, and incorporated landscape architecture into the master planning of the village. Landscape architecture is not something that is discussed or considered when building a house in the village, fruit trees are planted more for functional or economical purpose rather than for aesthetics or environmental purpose. The collaboration has created this dialogue between architecture, landscape, planning and sustainability.

During this collaborative process, I was able to see a variety of ways in which people connect and collaborate as a team. This experience pushed me to form new partnerships, adapt to new ways of working due to remote working, and develop new skills, all while completing a project with a coherent theoretical concept… We formed a symbiotic unity of minds, sharing and combining our approaches to explore an out of the box creative project.

Ahmad Zubayr, BCU student

To carry out village planning, it was important to have a bottom-up approach, talk to local residents, understand how they live their lives, what it is they need, listen to their historical accounts, plan with them and capture their narrative, and most importantly, the changes made should enhance their lives. The workshops, site visits and conversations have got the villagers thinking about expansion of the village to accommodate population growth, planning of the village and the bazaar. The villagers want to have basic infrastructure within their village, better road connections, drainage, clean water, sanitation, electricity, technology, education and there has been a huge emphasis on healthcare. They would like to have more opportunities so that there is less pressure to leave their village. This whole process has given them hope that their village may receive development that would improve their lives.

Kazirgaon is faced with issues of rapid growth and, due to the doubling of the population over the last 10-15 years, this has caused the boundaries of the village to shift. Settlements have formed around the village, demands are growing for clean water, drainage, sanitation, health services, education and employment. In order for the village to grow sustainably, urban solutions are required from professionals to find solutions to the already increasing problems.

Our plan is to continue this project with further groups from both universities with support from the Commonwealth Association of Planners. We also hope to engage alumni from the courses in future developments.

Abubokkar Siddiki is a British Bangladeshi Architect and a committee member of the RIBA Southeast London Architects Group (RIBA SELAG) in the UK and currently completing his MA in International Planning and Sustainable Development from Westminster University. Eccles Ng CMLI is Deputy Course Director of the BA (Hons) Landscape Architecture course at Birmingham City University.

One group’s vision of a new bazaar public realm, a catalyst for economic growth by creating a new central focal point.

© Ahmad Zubay