Year of Completion: 

Location: Road 11 Block D, Banani,Dhaka 1213 

Photo Credits: Paraa Studio

Design Credits: Kazi Arefin

Project Type: Community Architecture

Location: Washpur, Bosila 

Project Status: Built 

Year of Completion: 2018

Design Credits: Kazi Arefin, Sadiqul Islam, Ruhul Abdin, Zaqaria Prince, Tarannum Nibir, Sharara Khan, Mahmuda Alam, Abdul Kadir, Khalid Saifullah, Farasha Zaman

Photo Credits: Paraa Studio

Project Type: Community Architecture

Location: Washpur, Bosila 

Project Status: Built 

Year of Completion: 2019

Design Credits: Kazi Arefin, Sadiqul Islam, Ruhul Abdin, Zaqaria Prince, Tarannum Nibir, Sharara Khan, Mahmuda Alam, Abdul Kadir, Khalid Saifullah, Farasha Zaman

Photo Credits: Paraa Studio

Year of Completion: 

Location: 

Photo Credits: Paraa Studio

Design Credits: Kazi Arefin

Project Type: Sports Complex

Project Status: Unbuilt 

Year of Completion: 

Design Credits: Kazi Arefin

Photo Credits: Paraa Studio

Project Type:  

Project Status: Unbuilt 

Design Credits: Kazi Arefin

Photo Credits: Paraa Studio

Year of Completion: 2022

Location: Khanpur, Narayanganj

Design Credits: Kazi Arefin, Khaled Saifullah, Shadiqul Islam Shehab, Mahmuda Alam, Abdul Kadir

This project builds on the existing relationship that the historical Mohsin Club has with the Khanpur community in Narayanganj. This is a multifunctional public project on a small city corporation land/public land, to test a model where club building can play a role as a local youth centre, community space. The design focused on developing a program beyond sports related activities such as library, science centre, senior citizens space, newspaper reading etc. Along with accessible or visually connected levels to ensure safe and secured space along with intergenerational engagement. Outside of the club, there is a multipurpose field to be used as a walking and running track, climbing wall, outdoor gym.

Project Type: Training Centre

Project Status: Unbuilt 

Year of Completion: 

Design Credits: Kazi Arefin

Photo Credits: Paraa Studio

Year of Completion: 

Location: 

Photo Credits: Paraa Studio

Design Credits: Kazi Arefin

Year of Completion: 

Location:  

Photo Credits: Paraa Studio

Design Credits: Kazi Arefin

Year of Completion: 2024

Location: Korail, Mohakhali

Design Credits: Kazi Arefin, Khaled Saifullah, Abdul Kadir, Farhin Iqbal

Machan is a new permanent cultural and gathering structure emerging from the Korail-City of Culture project, dedicated to cultural activities in Korail, the largest low-income settlement in Dhaka. It is a collaborative project between Paraa and Korail residents.

Year of Completion: 

Location: 

Photo Credits: Paraa Studio

Design Credits: Kazi Arefin

Year of Completion: 2025

Location: Tejgaon-Gulshan Link Road

Photo Credits: Paraa Studio

Design Credits: Kazi Arefin, Abdul Kadir

Year of Completion: 2015

Location: Maniknagar Link Road, Maniknagar, Dhaka

Photo Credits: Paraa Studio

Design Credits: Kazi Arefin, Tahmid Islam, Ruhul Abdin, Rayed Yusuf

On a small plot of land secured from the Dhaka South City Corporation (1500-sft) there was an ambition to create: An emergency night time shelter.

Space for cooking, Space for bathing, toilet and locker facilities, Space supporting day care and primary education facility for 30 children allowing the mothers to pursue paid work, health care comer where basic treatments and services can be provided, space for counselling and awareness of beneficiaries on monetary savings and other bank transactions, on health and hygiene and more, space for training recipients, engaging them in sustainable professions that help in livelihood development, space for leisure activities and a public toilet.

A participatory led design process was used to help develop the program for the centre, along with elements of the building's façade. The user's response led to a series of very specific design interventions centred around dignity -

1. Extra bathrooms - for children to bath, for women to use separately, for young adolescents to use separately and a completely separate public toilet component.

2. Open space to play hangout/relax

3. Space for washing/cooking and preparing meals to take home

4. A separate training space for staff and guests that is multipurpose.

The centre can be seen both by the city and the foundation as an important model to support, with purpose built centres, the development of the vulnerable urban poor.

WAVES OF URBAN INTERVENTIONS

STORM SURGE

n.

An unusual, often destructive rise in sea level above normal high-tide level in a coastal area, caused by a combination of low atmospheric pressure and strong onshore winds during a storm.’

INSURGENT PLANNING
“Invented” spaces are defined as those collective actions by the poor that directly confront the authorities and challenge the status quo… Insurgent planning is transgressive in time, place, and action. It transgresses false dichotomies, by public actions spanning formal / informal arenas of politics and invited / invented spaces of citizenship practice. It transgresses national boundaries by building transnational solidarities of marginalized people. It transgresses time bounds by seeking a historicized consciousness and promoting historical memory of present experiences.’  Miraftab (2016)

Paraa’s ambitious response is a participatory, playful, architectural and tectonic installation embodying the potential of play across generations, spaces, places and communities. Paraa proposes to install a large structure (or, connected structures) in the atrium space of the Shilpakala, that respond to the needs of low income, marginalised settlements across Dhaka city in partnership with Goethe Institut Bangladesh and Floating University. 

It fundamentally looks to situate the design process itself as insurgent waves of community led interventions in urban places that are often disregarded as they are not ‘formal’ ‘safe’ communities. This is due to their informal organisations or lack of legal recognition, often appearing in forms of squatter settlements or hybrid legitimate urban environments dotted across Dhaka city. Learning from our Bamboo Playspace project in Bosilla, Dhaka and its potential as a site for engaged activities going beyond the arts, becoming a place / space for activities that engage and support the neighbourhood and wider community to have access to universally accessible places / architectural interventions. 

This ambitious installation will be developed via participatory methods with potentially 3-5 different community groups to design and then assemble on and off site (Depending on the designed outputs).

As a legacy of DAS, and concurrently as a starting point in communities, the structures will be dismantled and reassembled in places of informality, staying temporary but acting as invented spaces for community to play, socialise and engage / explore. The proposal builds on the work Paraa has been doing with Korail residents in collaboration with Goethe Institut Bangladesh, and charities such as LEEDO, and other community groups across the city.

As an additional and potential response to the wider concept note - Paraa will work with communities who’ve been potentially displaced by climate phenomenon and are based in Dhaka, maybe across generations or even new migrants to help inform / develop indigenous stories of climate catastrophes.  Korail in Banani provides one such neighbourhood for such workshops, along with… Bhola Bosti in Pallabi, Bauniabadh, Kalshi, Mirpur to work with them to develop / create / design spaces that are resilience focused and are inclusive in their implementation and use. 

Year of Completion: 

Location: S K Center, TB Gate Rd, Dhaka 

Photo Credits: Paraa Studio

Design Credits: Kazi Arefin

FASHION ART MUSIC

Paraa's first Chol (www.chol.paraa.org.uk) collaboration with fashion designer Shama Kun. This is an experimental, fashion music video with models from diverse backgrounds in Dhaka Bangladesh. The full video was shot in Begumbazar, Puran Dhaka in one morning. The music is by the amazing Lal ( Rose and Nick ) from Toronto. 

Bangladeshi women and trans people, and even men face different kinds of harassment in the public realm. This has sadly become a very common thing in Bangladesh, especially due to the kinds of clothes they wear. The skills, energy and capacity to cope with these obvious male gazes and judgmental looks are something Bangladeshi women have had to develop, some cope, many do not! The situation is everywhere, from the villages, to small towns to the big city, and often erupts in nasty judgements that are annoying yet perceived to be quite normal. At times, these have ended in violence against women and trans people, with quite limited access to justice.  

Paraa's sustainable ethical fashion platform: Chol has started this campaign to address the issue, set in an alternative reality, where women and trans people can travel, commute freely and just be themselves in public. It’s often a common thing for women to think twice about their attire before stepping out into the public realm. Still many are brave enough to be themselves no matter what. But this simple thing should not be a struggle. 

We will be posting more videos on this campaign to reflect how people deal with this issue. We want to break the practice of judgemental gazing and motivate people to take this matter more seriously and start changing from within.

Credits: 

Concept: Paraa

Questions, Camera and Direction: Tarannum Nibir

Models: Mo Hla Yee, Tasnuva Anan, Joya Sikder, Tahsin Tamanna Nodee, Diana Monica, Samrita Chanda, Safia Akhter

The Playspace is a result of Paraa’s first short course, CADSE; Critical Architecture, Design and Sustainable Environment, a new short course designed to address the need for widened critical education in the built environment.  

Paraa’s approach to design education is focused on learning through doing, a practical learning programme structured to address societal issues along with the development of the student in leadership, management and design. The live project was to design and build a playspace to be inclusive and accessible for all, especially those children whom are differently abled, residing at the LEEDO Peace Home.

The play space will exist for two years, with a series of innovative programmes to accompany it over the year.

Fashion performance video of Chol x Shama Kun's kantha collection in a disused warehouse in Dhaka by Paraa. 

Music by LAL. ( www.lalforest.com )

Paraa, in collaboration with Food And Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Bangladesh conducted a 6-month long exploratory research in Dhaka North city to explore the ongoing informal urban agriculture practices among the poor (slum and camp dwellers). This film is an outcome of that research intended to disseminate across the public domain. 

Paraa urban research team led by Zaqaria Prince conducted the research while the film/visual research team led by Tarannum Nibir directed the film with technical assistance from Fayed Masud Khan.

Paraa acknowledges contributions from all the participants of this film. 

Project Type: 

Project Status: Unbuilt 

Year of Completion: 

Design Credits: Kazi Arefin

Photo Credits: Paraa Studio

Project Type: Interior Design

Location: 

Project Status: Unbuilt 

Year of Completion: 

Design Credits: Kazi Arefin

Photo Credits: Paraa Studio

Project Type: 

Location: 

Project Status: Unbuilt 

Year of Completion: 

Design Credits: Kazi Arefin

Photo Credits: Paraa Studio

Project Type: Community Architecture

Location: Washpur, Bosila 

Project Status: Unbuilt 

Year of Completion: 

Design Credits: Kazi Arefin

Photo Credits: Paraa Studio

Project Type: Community Architecture

Location: 

Project Status: Built 

Year of Completion: 

Design Credits: Kazi Arefin

Photo Credits: Paraa Studio

SHALA_Neighbourhood Art Space invites applications for Creative Fellowships designed to collaboratively explore and reimagine the changing urban neighbourhood of the Tejgaon Industrial Areas. As a creative practitioner, artist, or researcher passionate about exploring urban dynamics and community connections, SHALA offers a space and opportunity to collectively build a meaningful future that is climate resilient. 

DOWNLOAD THE EVENT PROGRAM HERE:

To download the Event Guide & Festival Map click here

ইভেন্ট গাইড ও ফেস্টিভ্যাল ম্যাপ ডাউনলোড করতে এখানে ক্লিক করুন

SIGN UP FOR WORKSHOPS HERE: Workshop Sign up link

Moja-Kori, translating to “Let’s Have Fun”, is set to be one of the most exciting festivals of the year, taking place on December 6, 7, 13 & 14, 2024 across multiple sites in Korail, Dhaka, with the  new public cultural space, Machan, at Ershad Maath of Korail, as the central venue. The festival is part of the Korail-City of Culture project funded by the Creative Economy Programme of the Federal Foreign Office in Germany, in partnership with the Goethe-Institut Bangladesh, its local partner Paraa and international partner Floating e.V. The festival will explore the intersections of design, arts, climate change, accessibility, and sustainability through installations, workshops, performances, and discussions led by renowned local and international artists and designers.

The exhibition and program sites are not conventional gallery spaces but busy bazaar streets, rickshaw garages, community spaces, lakeside paths, waterbody or lake in Korail.

The ‘Treasure Hunt’ Density challenge is an exciting way to understand and experience the city organised by the Travellers of Bangladesh and Escapade team. The Korail edition is filled with clues, tasks and games throughout Korail in a competitive way! To participate - register as groups of three. 

There are prizes to be won!

THE DEADLINE FOR REGISTRATION IS 10TH DECEMBER 11: 59 PM BST TIME. ( We may need to restrict the number of groups and an early deadline depending on the responses).

CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION LINK 
REGISTRATION DEADLINE: 10th December 2024

Open Call deadline extended to 1 November

This is an open call for artists / creatives / researchers/ artist-led initiative to engage with the MOJA KORI festival. This provides opportunities for all creative art practitioners ( fine arts, film, visual, workshop, public engagement, design, performance, music, research and beyond ) to submit their already produced art work or a proposal to produce or present during the Moja Kori Festival.

The jury has announced the winners of the Korail Design Festival’s architectural idea generation competition! Congratulations to the talented participants who showcased innovative visions for Korail's future in 2100

Over the years, the Paraa team have worked on many projects that have required graphic design work. Many of these are in the form of posters - be it for events, exhibitions, workshops, design competitions etc. This is a small selection of the graphic design work the studio has produced. 

information coming soon

Hoichoi takes you on a journey to understand Korail Culture as you interact with diverse forms of expressions emerging from the students at CADSE (Critical Architecture Design Sustainable Environments), the 2024 Winter School developed by Paraa. The exhibition presents explorations and interactions of professionals and Korail youth residents leading to this collaborative amalgamation capturing a hot pot of migrated traditions and new beliefs formed in an urban fabric. 

You are invited to the closing event of the Hoichoi Exhibition, showcasing projects developed by the participants of the 2024 CADSE Winter School programmed by Paraa, where participants focused on the ongoing project- “Korail-City Of Culture”.

Open Call: Korail Residency 2024