Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum, in collaboration with engineering firm AKT II designed a small house made of mainly bamboo, which was designed to assemble, dismantle and move to a new location.

Called Khudi Bari (small house in Bengali), the modular structure was originally developed during the lockdown of the pandemic in 2020 as potential shelter for the marginalised population living in the sand beds of the river Meghna, which is one of three rivers that form the Ganges Delta. In this area, entire swathes of land can flood overnight.

The low-cost house consist of a raised structure of bamboo, a material that can be grown and sourced locally. Prefabricated nodes from recycled aluminium and joints facilitate easy assembly and disassembly by hand, without the need for electricity or mechanical power. The materials for the walls and roof can be sourced locally as well, using things like polycarbonate and metal.

There are more than one hundred of these houses installed. One of them was constructed on the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein (Germany) “as an example of a certain architectural mindset and a concrete response to problems exacerbated by the climate crisis.”

Photos: Julien Lanoo / Marina Tabassum Architects