“THE COURTYARD HOUSE - Uthaanbari” Expansion of TSC

The architectural piece crafted by Sir Doxiadis houses emotions of students gathering at TSC for their pastime activities for over 50 years, as successfully as ever.

TSC is now a common gathering place for the general public of Dhaka city due to its climatic, spatial and massing considerations. Therefore, it is important that this structure is preserved for its virtue. The extension that is necessary for increasing student numbers should respect and complement the existing structure, which is preserved through adaptive reuse.

Further extension is carried on to the plot next to it, creating a space familiar to Bengalis, through special planning, use of water bodies and greenery, form and material. The extension would follow the ways a Bengali village household has a pond in their backyard. Intentions are to create spaces with which students have a close relationship and it appeals to their Bengali roots, yet very contemporary. The planning adopts the “courtyards connected through shaded corridors' ideology in Doxiadis’s design, and expands it to add more courtyards and pavilions, to terminate the journey at a water based pavilion.

Internal spaces fuse with the existing TSC seamlessly. Cascading layers of spaces interconnect activities and the users visually and physically through steps.

The roof- an important aspect of Sir doxiadis’s design to cut down heat gain - is reinterpreted in this design to allow diffused light and loft the spaces. The four folded square roofs are elevated on stilts, and the gap between flat roof and folded roof allows light to enter without heating the room up, and also allows hot air to escape.

Overall, an intention was to create contemporary forms and spaces that complement, enhance, and amplify Bengali traditional values, a very similar intention to that of Doxiadis.